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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990839">Before Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoWithTheFlo20/pseuds/GoWithTheFlo20'>GoWithTheFlo20</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Use of the Force, Alternate Universe, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, BAMF Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bonding, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Harry Potter Uses The Force, Harry Potter is Bad at Feelings, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Training (Star Wars), Light-Hearted, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, She's Not Very Good At It In The Beginning, The Force Ships It, rule of three</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:01:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990839</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoWithTheFlo20/pseuds/GoWithTheFlo20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching her godfather fall through the Veil unleashed something strange in Leilani Potter. In a moment of madness, or perhaps Potter luck, the two were awfully similar, she leapt headfirst into the Veil, determined to find Sirius Black. Instead, she discovered an incandescent organ of life, visibly vibrating with the pulses of billions, known to the locals as Coruscant. With it came crime syndicates and senates, war and rebellion, and an order that called themselves Jedi's.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker/Harry Potter/Obi-wan Kenobi, Harry Potter/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Harry Potter, Sirius Black/Ahsoka Tano</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>638</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Falling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Come on, you can do better than that!”</p><p> </p><p>Sirius Black was laughing at Bellatrix Lestrange, ducking below her jet of red light. He wasn’t so fast on the second flung curse.</p><p> </p><p>It hit him squarely in the chest, right over his marauder heart.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani Potter could feel the heat of it from a few feet away, a wall of warmth that stung the side of her face as she held her ground against Dolohov beside Neville Longbottom.</p><p> </p><p>She could still hear his laughter rumbling around the cavernous room, even when it died in his throat.</p><p> </p><p>She could still see his mirth that had not quite lifted from his face, even as his eyes widened in shock.</p><p> </p><p>That was the worst of it, Leilani would remember. That smile, that damned, beguiling smile still plastered on his face even as-</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know when or how she knocked Dolohov down, but she remembered, distantly, as if she was suddenly underwater, hearing the smack and slap of his body hitting marble ringing out behind her as she twisted, jumping down the steps, wand in hand, dashing for the dais holding the Veil and her dear, dear Sirius.</p><p> </p><p>To Leilani, it happened ever so slowly. It gave her a chance. If she was fast enough, swift enough, if her feet just bloody moved quicker than what they were, she could reach him, grab him, save hi-</p><p> </p><p>Sirius stumbled back a step, skidded, his body curving in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ghostly Veil hanging from the arch.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani had only been three steps away.</p><p> </p><p>So close, and yet so far. </p><p> </p><p>She would always remember the brush of his velvet waistcoat on the tips of her fingers. </p><p> </p><p>Just one inch out.</p><p> </p><p>One step behind.</p><p> </p><p>One spell too late.  </p><p> </p><p>The story of her life.</p><p> </p><p>She watched the mingled fear bleed through the surprise on her godfather’s wasted, once upon a time handsome, face as he plunged through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the Veil, as if he was a marionette and the puppeteer had abruptly yanked him by the strings.</p><p> </p><p>The Veil fluttered for a moment, disturbed, before it settled back into place.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani heard Bellatrix’s triumphant scream, semi-furious half hysterical, but she knew it meant nothing. She’d see. Sirius had only just fallen through the archway.</p><p> </p><p>He would reappear on the other side any second now.</p><p> </p><p>He would.</p><p> </p><p>Right now.</p><p> </p><p>A breath later.</p><p> </p><p>A beat more.</p><p> </p><p>Sirius would-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He wouldn’t.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Sirius!”</p><p> </p><p>Leilani yelled. It was the type of scream that tore the soft tissue on its way out. A burst of emotion, fierce and hot, too wild to contain.</p><p> </p><p>It burned.</p><p> </p><p>It burned and it seared and it was a terrible, terrible noise. Yet, still, she cried again, as if she screamed hard enough, pleaded more, begged and demanded, he would come back.</p><p> </p><p>“Sirius!”</p><p> </p><p>Sirius must be behind the Veil. If Leilani just got through, stretched, she could pull him back out again and-</p><p> </p><p>Two arms draped around her torso, tight and taut, wrenching her away.</p><p> </p><p>Remus Lupin’s breath was cool against the shell of her ear.  </p><p> </p><p>“There’s nothing you can do, Lela. It’s-“</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>No. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>No, this wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be. Not for Sirius. There was still so much they were going to do. He was going to be a free man one day, and she would live with him, and he would tell her tales of her parents and they would laugh over chocolate cake, his favourite, and-</p><p> </p><p>So many tomorrows gone. Wasted with a laugh. </p><p> </p><p>Life, with all its promises of tomorrows, could not just… Just… <em>end</em> so suddenly.</p><p> </p><p>Get snatched away in a misstep.</p><p> </p><p>“Let go! I can get to him. I can save him! He’s only just gone through! Let go, Remus! Let go!”</p><p> </p><p>Remus’s grip tightened until it was hard to breathe.</p><p> </p><p>Or Leilani was struggling to breathe to begin with.</p><p> </p><p>Time meant nothing here, in the shadow of grief.</p><p> </p><p>What came before and what happened after seemed to drain together into one lobbing muddle.</p><p> </p><p>All she could see was Sirius’s smile.        </p><p> </p><p>“It’s too late! Stop struggling! There’s nothing to be done… He’s gone, Lela. He’s gone.”</p><p> </p><p>Leilani became oddly… Calm, in Remus’s grasp. Calm and quiet. Why?</p><p> </p><p>Because that was wrong, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Nothing to be done.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She was told that her whole life.</p><p> </p><p>There was nothing to be done<em> but</em> to go back to the Dursley’s and be locked in her cupboard.</p><p> </p><p>There was nothing to be done<em> but</em> to struggle and battle and run from Voldemort, always ten steps behind.</p><p> </p><p>There was nothing to be done<em> but</em> watch her dear godfather die.</p><p> </p><p>But that was a <em>lie</em>.</p><p> </p><p>There was only two times in a life where nothing could be done. Yesterday, for it had already passed, and tomorrow, for it had yet to come.</p><p> </p><p>But today?</p><p> </p><p>Today was a wonderful promise of everything, anything, and all possibilities.</p><p> </p><p>If one <em>tried. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Today was always the day to believe, to love, to do and live.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani believed that with all her heart.</p><p> </p><p>She had to.</p><p> </p><p>For she was about to do something utterly Potter-ly, despite being the spitting image of her mother.</p><p> </p><p>She was going to do the impossible.</p><p> </p><p>She was going to save her godfather.  </p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, she could see.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, she could hear.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, she could <em>feel. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Everything. All at once. Everyone. She could feel the darkness in Bellatrix over the way, an oil like substance, thick and dense, disgusting, churning in her stomach. She could feel Remus’s sorrow, so poignant, like rain hitting a tin roof, though he struggled to keep himself composed for her. She could feel the scrape on Hermione’s knee, as if it were her own, and the bump to Neville’s head, and the air around them, alive with… with…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Life. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>From the marble floor to the Veil itself, everything was alive.</p><p> </p><p>And if she just reached out, touched it, asked and-</p><p> </p><p>“Let go!”</p><p> </p><p>Remus was flung away from her, somersaulting in the air, pushed back by an unseen force, a wind… Something not fully magic.</p><p> </p><p>Something else.</p><p> </p><p>Something <em>new</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It felt like hope.</p><p> </p><p>She wasted no time.</p><p> </p><p>She ran for it.</p><p> </p><p>She heard someone yell behind her, shouting her name, perhaps Ron, desperate and frantic, but this was too late.</p><p> </p><p>She leapt.</p><p> </p><p>She thought of Sirius’s grin, vivid on the back of her eyelids, filled with mischief, and she held on tight to that thought, that love it invoked in her, as her body slammed into the Veil and the world around her went lurching north.</p><p> </p><p>And up.</p><p> </p><p>And up.</p><p> </p><p>And up…</p><p> </p><p>Then, pop, she was falling.</p><p> </p><p>Falling from quite a high place.</p><p> </p><p>Falling rather fast, actually.</p><p> </p><p>Falling into a crowd of-</p><p> </p><p>Oh, bloody hell. </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Green Eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? In a rather lethal way. It reminds one that magnificence can be found in even the darkest of places.”</p><p> </p><p>Instantly recognizable by its unique crown of five spires, the vast edifice of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant soared above the adjacent skyline of rooftops, proudly proclaiming the Order it housed. To a layman’s eye, it was an impregnable citadel. Cleverly placed in an isolated area, isolated in its relative term to Coruscant that is, resting on a large city block in the Temple Precinct which, of course, for ease of duty neighboured the Senate District.</p><p> </p><p>Nevertheless, it was a peaceful place. A place for meditation and gentle reflection. Quasi-school and partial monastery, the Jedi Temple of Coruscant was the central hub for all Jedi pursuits in the Galaxy. It was here young Padawan Anakin Skywalker stood, upon the gable, amongst the five spires, staring up at the temporary sixth spire.</p><p> </p><p>The spire was shorter than the others, but no less towering, and for a crown it had a plinth. In three days’ time, the spire would be dismantled, as it was once a year, and the phenomenon contained upon its fixed head would be stored away in the bowels of the Temple, not again to see sunlight but in the next year for another three days.</p><p> </p><p>And so the cycle continued.</p><p> </p><p>However, this was the first time Anakin had seen it with his own eyes. A colossal sweep of stone, the arch was inscribed with Protobesh, or as close to it as the Jedi Masters could understand. Around it’s foundation sat a garland of flowers, speedily threaded together by the younglings, capping its base. It appeared part shrine here, offerings of incense and fruit placed at its foot by the locals, shimmering in the pale morning light.</p><p> </p><p>Nonetheless, it was what fluttered <em>between</em> the arch at the top that caught ones eye.</p><p> </p><p>The air quivered there. Trembled in an not-felt chilly breeze. A shield unseen, a veil untouched, half here, half gone.</p><p> </p><p>It snared Anakin’s gaze and kept it greedily.</p><p> </p><p>He could… <em>Feel</em> it, up there. A beckoning whisper. It refused to let him go. Murmuring and sighing in the wind. His hand rose, and stroked the base of the spire. The stone was warm to the touch.</p><p> </p><p>Too warm for the morning light to heat it as hot as it was.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin’s stare fled from the lofty podium, away from the cold stone and colder spectral veil, to the voice that spoke at it his side.</p><p> </p><p>He had thought he was alone up here.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine rose from the ground up in a swath of lavish robe, not a hair out of place, hands clasped behind his back, admiring the structure before the pair. Anakin’s hand snapped back, fingers tingling at the sudden loss of warmth.</p><p> </p><p>“What is it?”</p><p> </p><p>Chancellor Palpatine hummed deep in his throat, a croaky noise that rumbled between them, before he too looked away from the arch, meeting Anakin’s eye with an indulgent smile.</p><p> </p><p>“We call it the Shroud of Peverell. This, my boy, is perhaps the oldest thing on Coruscant. The last relic of a lost world and its people… You’re quite lucky to see it. It is ordinarily stored in the Archive for protection, and only permitted out for public viewing once a year, when the Jedi Council convene for their annual commission with the Republic.”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin, who had taken a short respite from being beside his Master, Obi-wan Kenobi, while he conversed with Master Yoda, peered back to the structure. It seemed difficult, extremely difficult, to look away for too long in its presence.</p><p> </p><p>“Peverell… My Master has mentioned him before.”</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine chuckled brightly.</p><p> </p><p>“He would do well to have done. Peverell was one of the first recorded Jedi, if I am not mistaken. Sad story. The first to fall to the dark side too, in an age before the old Republic, after the demise of his precious wife by his brother's hand. Darth Cursithor… Terribly tragic thing. The Peverell's loved deeply, and grieved deeper still, and death was always quick on their heel.”</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine brandished a hand at the Shroud, tone taking on a much lighter cadence.</p><p> </p><p>“But <em>this</em> wonderful creation was crafted before his fall from grace. In truth, there are seven across the galaxy. Seven Shrouds for seven Jedi strongholds.”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin swept his gaze across the stone, following its knotted stem. It really <em>was</em> beautiful, in an archaic macabre way, with its blunt, chipped stone and rugged etched sides.</p><p> </p><p>“What does it do?”</p><p> </p><p>He heard the tousle of Palpatine’s robes as he shuffled closer.</p><p> </p><p>“Now that is a mystery a better man than I will have to answer. Time, I’m afraid, has snatched that too… Although there <em>are </em>legends.”</p><p> </p><p><em>This</em> brought Anakin’s stare away from the Shroud, as he gazed at the Chancellor’s face. Feeling the heat and interest prickle on his cheek, Palpatine smiled. Patiently, Anakin waited. Thankfully, Palpatine didn’t keep him simmering in anticipation too long.</p><p> </p><p>“Most legends say these Shrouds are a passageway. To what? That too has been lost to the ages. Yet…”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin strode closer, pulled in by both Palpatine’s soothing voice and the ambiguity ahead.</p><p> </p><p>“Yet?”</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine leant towards him, bowing, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.</p><p> </p><p>“Yet, several mythologies speak of a race before the Jedi. Before the Dai Bendu. Before it <em>all</em>. The Progenitors, they call them. The original species of Coruscant. A race capable of wondrous things. A people so adept at wielding the Force in ways lost to their descendants. Individuals who could curve and twist the world around them to their whims, if they chose. They could be beast one blink, men the next. They could tell the future with nothing but leaves from a tree top, or morph themselves and steal a man's face, or put a stopper in death if it crept too close. With rite and ritual, they could change this pin-“</p><p> </p><p>Languidly, Palpatine motioned to the gilt broach glittering at his breast.</p><p> </p><p>“Into a sword if in need of a weapon, or a cup if thirsty, or poison most foul if insulted. Anything their hearts desired, they could weave from nothing but the air around them, if they had the skill and knew the verses. One, I have heard whispers about, managed to master Death itself, although the how and the why has been long lost. All we have of that individual is a flower etched on this very Shroud. It becomes problematic when you realise their writings were never... Linear. The Progenitors so did love their prophecies. Perhaps what is written here, before us now, is not what <em>has </em>been, but <em>will </em>be.”</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine’s smile turned wistful.</p><p> </p><p>“The Force was strong in the Progenitors. It is said, in some obscured texts, they even housed parts of it within themselves, as their very core. They <em>were </em>the Force. Bred and born from its miracles. Avatars of what we can only partly wield now. This Shroud and its sixth brethren, my dear boy, are our only link left to the Progenitors. And…”</p><p> </p><p>The tension was stiff and clotted like hour old blood spilled. Anakin could feel it in the air, so brittle it could snap. Or, perhaps, it was <em>he</em> who might break. Shatter into a million tiny pieces. There was a stirring in his gut, a boiling he couldn’t quite name, but it urged him closer, implored him on, told him to push, to know, to-</p><p> </p><p>A different voice rang out from behind one of the spires closest to them, as the newcomer came striding over.</p><p> </p><p>“And if one day, when times were dire indeed, if the Jedi were to fall completely, the Shroud would open and the Force would bring forth its Warrior to restore peace.”</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan Kenobi made his way towards his Padawan and the Chancellor, his robes a bright white underneath the sunlight, smile gentle and easy as he nodded politely to Palpatine.</p><p> </p><p>“I apologize if my Padawan disturbed you, Chancellor, while you were setting up for the meeting to come. I did ask him to wait outside the door while I spoke to Master Yoda. I did not expect him to wander off, especially into the chambers being prepared for the summit.”</p><p> </p><p>There was no mistaking the admonishing tone cresting at the vowels of Obi-wan’s clear cut voice. As if he was an excitable child with so much still to learn. It chaffed against Anakin, but he determinedly trudged down his ire.</p><p> </p><p>A Jedi controlled their emotions, they did not let their emotions control <em>them</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Or so he was told.</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps Anakin was still a child with much to learn, in a way, despite being nineteen. His emotions were often getting the better of him. Still, he tried, and surely that counted for something?</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine only chuckled in response.</p><p> </p><p>“No need for apologies, Jedi Kenobi. I am always here to offer a…guiding hand, particularly to one as curious as young Skywalker. It’s a refreshing feeling to be listened to so aptly outside the Senate. It should be I thanking you for the indulgence of an old mans’ hobbies. Now, if you excuse me, Kenobi is right. I have work to do. Skywalker… We will speak soon, yes?”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin nodded, as he watched the Chancellor head to the other side of the roof, far passed the spires, where the podiums, chairs and lecterns had been set for the summit between the Jedi Order and the Republic chiefs. Sunlight was a privilege on Coruscant, and those who had access to it used it whenever they could.</p><p> </p><p>“Warrior?”</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan sighed, but patted him tenderly on the shoulder, used to his voracious inquisitiveness by now.</p><p> </p><p>“It is but an old tale, Padawan. Largely obliterated in fragmentation. It does not help that nearly all of it is penned in Protobesh, a language lost to us mostly. Either it is Warrior, Healer, or, perhaps my favourite estimate by one rather… Eccentric Master, ‘Ginger Haired Pottery'. Perhaps it is all three, and one day we will be saved by orange crockery that is both healer and fighter.”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“But if we have this Shroud, and this promise of aid, why is there a prophecy of a Chosen one and-“</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan cut him off sharply.</p><p> </p><p>“There are no absolutes to a Jedi. Either or is for the blind. Everything is in flux, Anakin. Always remember that. One does not necessarily negate the other. Perhaps, if this legend is true, then they, this Warrior or Healer, is destined to help the Chosen One. Perhaps they are destined to save them so they can do what they must. Perhaps not, for the tale continues, from what we have left of it, declaring something about Powers of Three, and trios and triads and-</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Perhaps we are not meant to understand yet. In the millennia since their erection, the Shrouds have not so much as flickered. The Force-“</p><p> </p><p>Now it was Anakin’s turn to cut off his Master, parroting the line Obi-wan frequently used.</p><p> </p><p>“The Force moves us in mysterious ways. Most often in places and ways we cannot see.”</p><p> </p><p>Anew, Obi-wan patted his shoulder before the doors to the Temple roof parted, and in paraded the Jedi Council, followed swiftly by their Republic counterparts. This was to be the first Council meeting Anakin would sit within, as Padawan’s were typically prohibited from participating.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan had gained permission for Anakin’s silent, and that<em> was</em> a stipulation of his being there, involvement from Master Yoda and Master Windu, so he could learn the more delicate political intricacies of what being a Jedi meant.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan had worked hard to bring him here, this day.</p><p> </p><p>He wouldn’t disappoint his Master.</p><p> </p><p>“Come, we too have work ahead of us.”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin nodded keenly, a quick tip of his chin and an upright jar, trailing Obi-wan to their seats towards the back of the congregation.</p><p> </p><p>However, as much as Anakin tried, has hard as he pressed, he found his gaze drifting up to the Shroud over and over again. He swore, even from this distance, he could feel it watching him, as absurd as that sounded. He could still feel the glimmer of heat at his palm. A tingle of… Something in his gut.</p><p> </p><p>His hand squeezed on the pleasant sensation of warmth.</p><p> </p><p>The Shroud flickered in return.</p><p>
  
</p><p>It started off as a gentle buzz in Obi-wan Kenobi’s ear. Easily confused for the drawling voice of Master Saesee Tiin as he detailed his plans to the Republic and Council to establish an outpost on Avedon IV. They were halfway through the summit, without a hitch or snag, Anakin beside him, soaking it all in, learning the nuances and artful pedantics of politics, a set of skills Obi-wan had never quite mastered himself, when the buzz became a chime.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan startled in his seat, rising rigid, scowling, gaze flitting around them as Master Yoda and Windu both began, too, peering across themselves, drawn to the sudden disturbance in the Force about them.</p><p> </p><p>“Master, is everything-“</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan held up his hand, pausing Anakin’s cautious question, as his eyes slid shut. A steady, attentive stretch out, just prodding, a nudge, a-</p><p> </p><p>… <em>There</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Not a chime, not a ring… A… Song? A chant? It shifted sinuously, lithely, a tinge in the breeze, like a rushing river, just out of range and-</p><p> </p><p>“Move!”</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan shouted as he seized Anakin by the scruff of his robe, and hauled the two backwards, their chairs clattering to the floor in a symphony of chaos as the other Master Jedi’s came to the same conclusion as he and pushed backward, Windu snatching at the Chancellor, dragging him with him towards the rim of the roof defensively.  </p><p>It came only a heartbeat later.</p><p> </p><p>A crackle in the air.</p><p> </p><p>A crackle-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Zap. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Lightning struck, touching down in the space freshly vacated, torching the very spot the Chancellor had sat as head overseeing the summit.</p><p> </p><p>The pedestal to the Shroud cracked in half, a crack splintering down its winding spire, flowers falling to the ground, burnt black and shrivelled. What could have-</p><p> </p><p>There was only one difference between this year and those previous, when the Shroud had been brought out.</p><p> </p><p>Just <em>one. </em></p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan rolled to Anakin.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you touch it? Did you touch the Shroud, Anakin?”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin shook his head feverishly, but replied with something else entirely.</p><p> </p><p>“I only put my hand on the column holding it up. I didn’t… I…”</p><p> </p><p>There was no time to reply, no time to question anything further, as the Shroud, which had stood silent and still for epochs-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Glowed. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It shone like a star. Sizzling and pulsing. <em>Burning.</em> Expanding. Rising. Blazing so bright it became almost impossible to look upon it directly as-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Bang. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The light shot out, a small comet blistering, flying, shooting, out and out, right at-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Oh, dear. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan shoved Anakin out of the way of the bright light, leaving no time for himself to jump away to safety, just as the wind left his lungs in a rush of pain as something small and condensed smacked into him full force. He plummeted backwards, thumping into the marbled roof, barely hanging on, skidding, as the force of the hit struck a few too close Jedi and Republic leaders away through the air.  </p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan groaned on the floor, head lolled back, gaze to the sky, wheezing, and-</p><p> </p><p>Something groaned back.</p><p> </p><p>“Abiya, fontu yuknet… Shankan min voluntas.”</p><p> </p><p>That was undeniably a woman’s voice. Soft and dazzling, clear like crystal, yet raspy with pain.</p><p> </p><p>Something writhed in his lap.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan froze as it rose up above him-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Red. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>He saw red first. A waterfall of coiled fire glinting fiercely amber in the sunlight. The face came second. She was young, he could see. Pale with a constellation of taupe freckles charting across her face like a star map. Her pain, more anguish than agony, was palpable in the furrow of her lovely brow, and the down-curve of her full lips. But it was her eyes that told all, flashed her soul.</p><p> </p><p>They were a peculiar, nearly implausible, fusion of green. A hue of new spring growth, vivid and soft all at once. There were flecks there, moss flushed, splashes of strength, the flurry of summer advancement. In the heart of it all was a buried grit, a green only seen in the most tenacious of flowers, those that clung still to the frosted ground of winter.</p><p> </p><p>Green eyes that landed on him from above.</p><p> </p><p>Green eyes that frowned down in momentary bewilderment.</p><p> </p><p>There was a girl crouching over him, a girl that had come shooting out the Shroud. A girl, if he wasn’t mistaken, though he could not understand the words, he knew the flow, was speaking Protobesh.</p><p> </p><p>He smiled up at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello there.”</p><p> </p><p>She leapt off him, scurrying backwards, slipping once or twice on the marble, rattled gaze flickering about her to all the faces gaping.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait!”</p><p> </p><p>He sat up, groaning at the ache to his chest and the back of his skull, before he wrangled himself to his knees, holding his hands up, palms open, calm.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s alright. We’re not going to hurt you-“</p><p> </p><p>She ignored him as she came to a teetering stand, swiftly searching the crowd, the strangers surrounding her, as she backed up. He noticed her state then. The smoke and ash on her clothes and skin. The speckles of blood on her face, blending with her freckles. The ruin and tear to her odd clothing. She looked-</p><p> </p><p>Well, she looked to be plucked right out a war.</p><p> </p><p>“Von Bushka! Bushka! Vi ond lic Merlin, von Bushka nem Shankan punkonmire!”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin was beside him suddenly, helping him to a stand, as Yoda, cautiously, edged forward, the clunk of his staff clanging on the marble, eyeing their rather dishevelled newcomer.</p><p> </p><p>“Pain, I sense. Much Pain and grief. Panicked, she is.”</p><p> </p><p>The girl’s gaze shot to the doors by the forth spire. The only way in and out of the roof plateau. Nevertheless, Palpatine chose that exact moment to reach for his command pad, pressing buttons promptly on the blue screen. Obi-wan yelled over to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t! you’ll only make her feel-“</p><p> </p><p>The security doors to the plateau fell down with a sizzle, the shield activating in vibrating crimson. Obi-wan sighed deeply, finishing his sentence despite the futility of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Trapped.”</p><p> </p><p>And she did.</p><p> </p><p>The reaction was instantaneous. She held her hand out, up, fingers flexing, shouting in her strange language before a… Stick, of all things, came flying from near Obi-wan’s foot and straight into her straining grasp.</p><p> </p><p>Well, she was certainly a Force user.</p><p> </p><p>She aimed the stick at them.</p><p> </p><p>“Demnon tresil gorgin! Demnon umnamil! Fernic shelsik von? Fernic Sirius? Fernic Sirius!”</p><p> </p><p>The tip of the stick slid over the Chancellor. Master Plo Koon, next to the Supreme Chancellor, reached for his Lightsaber, igniting the weapon before Master Windu could reach out and stop him. </p><p> </p><p>Windu had been right to try. </p><p> </p><p>The firing of the Kaber Crystal caught the girls attention. </p><p> </p><p>She frowned in confusion before-</p><p> </p><p>Well, she knew a weapon when she saw one.</p><p> </p><p>Her hand twisted, shifted back before flinging forward, faster than possible, done in a blink, as gracefully as the singing Obi-wan had heard floating on the wind earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“Bombarda Maxima!”</p><p> </p><p>Windu, grasping the Chancellor, jumped out of the way just in time. Plo Koon scarcely managed a tuck and roll. The force blew into the spire behind them, a portion of stone exploding, bursting, raining chunks of marble above their heads.</p><p> </p><p>The spire bleated and screeched, crumbled, pitching back, rupturing, demolished, the tip too large collapsing off the roof to the darkened streets below. </p><p> </p><p>Before Plo Koon, or another Master, could retaliate, Obi-wan hastened forward, between them, hands still up, slowly, ever so slowly, skirting closer to the girl, drawing her attention, speaking as calmly as he could. Even if she could not understand him, which he thought she couldn’t as they clearly couldn’t understand her, he hoped the tone of his voice would show he, and in turn they, meant no harm.</p><p> </p><p>Despite Plo Koon's rash actions. </p><p> </p><p>“We’re not going to hurt you. See? No weapon… Peace… There is no where to go. Please, put your… Stick down. See? Calm. Nice and calm… We only want to help.”</p><p> </p><p>It was the truth. There was only one way on and off this plateau, the door Palpatine had locked down, and if they, and her, wanted to get off this roof peaceably, without injury, they needed to all relax.</p><p> </p><p>He watched as her feet braced on the floor, squaring off, but she did not fire anything from her stick again, although she did jab it in his direction.</p><p> </p><p>“Fernic Sirius! Yumnij von Sirius!”</p><p> </p><p>One more step. Wait. No reaction. Another step. Wait. Press forward. It was like a dance, Obi-wan thought. </p><p> </p><p>A dance where one wrong step could get your head exploded as the fourth spire had been. </p><p> </p><p>However, she looked so… <em>Young</em>. Young and scared and blood-soaked.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn't done in malice, he thought, but in fear. He could almost taste it in the air around her. Sour and heady. She had spotted a weapon, and so she had lashed out on instinct. Obi-wan had his fair share of lashing-outs by training Padawans, as they came to grapple their emotions properly. </p><p> </p><p>Anakin still had trouble with his emotions to this day, in spite of being towards the end of his training. </p><p> </p><p>The issue with this comparison,  however, was Padawans in fear would only Force push or pull you in the heat of the moment. Not bring a building down upon your head with a flick of their wrist, as this Progenitor, by the state of the spire, <em>could. </em></p><p> </p><p>The added danger was only more reason to try and peaceably get through to the frantic girl. </p><p> </p><p>“Serious? I’m terribly sorry… I don’t know what that means. Or, at least, I don’t think our definition of serious is yours too… But if you put that down, we can try and talk. You don’t want to fight, do you? I can see it… You're tired... We can help. Please, put it down.”</p><p> </p><p>He was close enough to reach out and grab the stick now. Gradually, gingerly, he extended his hand. The stick trembled in her grasp as he gently, kindly, grasped onto the hand.</p><p> </p><p>She was hot to the touch.</p><p> </p><p>Ablaze.</p><p> </p><p>He could-</p><p> </p><p>The Force. He could feel it there, at his fingertips, a nexus, raw and unrefined, lurking underneath her skin. It rinsed up his arm, into his own chest, lapping like the waves of a tide, like the kisses of sunbeams on bare skin. Unwittingly, his grasp tightened.</p><p> </p><p>He bit down sharply.</p><p> </p><p>Bit down hard enough to taste copper on his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>Viciously fighting the peculiar impulse to pull the sensation closer.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, together, they lowered the stick.</p><p> </p><p>She blinked up at him with those green, green eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, she was sad, Obi-wan knew.</p><p> </p><p>So very, very sad.</p><p> </p><p>And alone.</p><p> </p><p>And scared.</p><p> </p><p>And lost.  </p><p> </p><p>“Von humbdit Sirius… Muskla…”</p><p> </p><p>There was no mistaking the despair in her voice. The desperation begged as a plea. The need and grief mingled so tightly it was hard to hear. Whatever this serious was, it must have meant an awful lot to the girl. </p><p> </p><p>Of course, this was the exact moment the doors to the plateau surged open, as the alert of them locking must have reached security, and, regrettably, droids came marching onto the roof, phasers up and targeted.</p><p> </p><p>The girl’s head snapped around, a snarl knotting her face into a scowl, as she, quite possibly, thought Obi-wan had been stalling her for the droids to come.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not what you think. The-“</p><p> </p><p>The droids opened fire. </p><p> </p><p>Hastily, she yanked her stick free, and slammed passed Obi-wan, shouldering him neatly.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn't grab her in time and dodge the bolt that skimmed his face. </p><p> </p><p>She was an agile little thing, dropping and lunging, dodging and ducking, as she sprinted, using her free hand to pull a broken chair leg that had shattered on her impact into her grip with a trundle of her strange language.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan could only watch as she managed to evade the bolts shot at her, run to the edge of the roof and-</p><p> </p><p>Dive right off.</p><p> </p><p>He dashed after her as the droids halted their assault.</p><p> </p><p>However, he had to pull away seconds later as a gust of wind rushed up, knocking him back and, quite literally, the girl came flying up, stooping astride the broken chair leg, before she arched in the air and sailed off across the horizon in a streak of amber.</p><p> </p><p>For a long while, stillness fell upon them whilst they all tried to absorb what had exactly just happened. Of course, it was <em>his </em>Padawan, Anakin, who shattered the silence, as he came up to Obi-wan’s back, peering out over the ledge.  </p><p> </p><p>“No where to go? It seems she is capable of flight, Master.”</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan exhaled a long, drawn out breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I can see that, Padawan.”</p><p> </p><p>Windu was the next to break out of his stupor.</p><p> </p><p>“We must find her. Not only to prevent her from hurting anyone, but from hurting herself as well. I will-”</p><p> </p><p>Yoda knocked his staff onto the marble noisily.</p><p> </p><p>“Return to work, you must. Trust not easily won, I fear, in her. Scared. Grief has made her frantic. Desperation, I sense. Obi-wan must go. Got through to her once, and again, he will.”</p><p> </p><p>Obi wan bowed.</p><p> </p><p>“I will set out right away. Anakin?”</p><p> </p><p>“Here, Master.”</p><p> </p><p>He gestured for the younger man to follow. </p><p> </p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>NEXT CHAPTER’S PREVIEW:</p><p>Anakin could not see her in the dimness of the chambers they had traced her trail to. The busted ventilation shaft in the ceiling was the only sign she had entered from the roof of the building. A demolished security droid, the broken chair leg, and scorch marks had been found on the roof, outside the ventilation shaft, but nothing else. Obi-wan had taken the rooms to sets over, the only other exit to the shaft. </p><p>Nevertheless, he could sense her here, somewhere.</p><p>Crouching low, he placed his Lightsaber on the floor, and rolled it forward, into the swelling darkness of the chamber. </p><p>“I know you are here. I know you can hear my voice. I come as a friend.”  </p><p>He spoke in Aurebesh, slightly jilted, as Obi-wan had requested he did, in hopes there were some, if but a few, crossovers in its root language of Protobesh. </p><p>The locker beside the bed creaked open. </p><p>He saw her in the streak of silver moonlight filtering in from the window, pale and fiery. Deliberately, she stepped out and into the room, stick clutched in her bleeding hand, gaze locked on him, exhausted. </p><p>“Friend?”</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Roofs, Robots, and Reinforced Men.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Leilani plunged to the dappled roof in a blur, a whoosh, and a resounding thud. The wood beneath her snapped in two on impact, cracking beneath her as she clipped the ground by her tail end. Just like the skin of her knees as they pounded into the sleek metal, slewing. She managed to roll herself to a stop before she could go careening over the tiny ridge of the skyscraper she had descended upon, and straight into the darkness below.</p><p> </p><p>For landings, it wasn’t one of her most elegant.</p><p> </p><p>More ungainly jangle than grace.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, she had never flew on a chair leg before.</p><p> </p><p>If truth be told, she had not known it was possible to fly on anything <em>other</em> than a broom, until she was being shot at by, well, she thought they might have been robots, actual Merlin given<em> robots</em>, and her only option had been to try any fuckin’ thing to get out of there.</p><p> </p><p>Luck, it would seem, had been on her side, and the chair leg worked.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani groaned deeply as she lugged herself to a sit, wincing at the burn pulling tight at her bicep. Tentatively, she glanced down, poking at the scorched tear on her t-shirt. The skin was raw and blistered underneath, burnt. Using her wand, she sliced the hem of her shirt off, hissing as she tied it tightly around the open wound, knotting it with her teeth and free hand.</p><p> </p><p>It wouldn’t do much for the pain, but it would stop any more ash or dust getting into the wound.</p><p> </p><p>The last thing she needed right now was a bloody infected arm.</p><p> </p><p>This may be the last roof she had landed on, thanks to the breaking of her pseudo-broom, but it had not been the first. Neither was it her second. Or third. She had lost count after the fifth, but she was sure she had not hit double digits yet. Everywhere she turned, <em>they </em>showed up. Robots, men in funny uniforms and bizarre helmets, and guns that shot bright colours, spells? No, but… <em>something.</em></p><p> </p><p>Something that burned through whatever it was targeted at as easy and effortlessly as a heated knife through butter.  </p><p> </p><p>They were always waiting.</p><p> </p><p>They spoke first, in that bizarre language everyone around here shouted in. A keen language, if Leilani had ever heard one. Filled with sharp clicking consonants and dulled vowels. Awful for poetry, she suspected, though they often rhymed, because, she thought, it definitely <em>wasn’t</em> poems they were trying to recite when they spied her on the roofs.</p><p> </p><p>They barked at her then, in that guttural language, demanding something Leilani would guess.</p><p> </p><p>Then they opened fire.</p><p> </p><p>She had not been fast enough getting off the last roof she had landed on.</p><p> </p><p>They got a lucky shot at her arm as she swerved to jump back off.</p><p> </p><p>Her <em>wand </em>arm.</p><p> </p><p>She had lost control of her pseudo-broom.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Crashed. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Now she was stuck, here, in this land of metal and bright lights and strange, strange men, who she wasn’t entirely sure were all <em>human</em>, wand arm injured which would slow her spellcasting, without flight, and-</p><p> </p><p><em>Breathe</em>. Deep inhale through the nose, and a slow exhale through the mouth.<em> Focus. </em>That’s it. Focus. Concentrate. Ground herself. It was alright. She was alive. She was still breathing. It wasn’t over yet. She could still use magic. Her right arm wasn’t as swift as her left, but it would do when the crunch came. She just… She just…</p><p> </p><p>She needed to find Sirius.</p><p> </p><p>That’s what she needed to do.</p><p> </p><p>Come Morgana or Circe, she needed to find Sirius Black. Once she did, everything would be okay. Sirius would be alive, well, and they could find the Veil again, and go home. Home to Hermione and Ron, where things made sense, and there were no robots with guns, or men in funny helmets barking like dogs, or wizards with light beam swords and-</p><p> </p><p>Bloody hell… what had she gotten herself into?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It didn’t matter. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>None of it.</p><p> </p><p>What mattered was her godfather.</p><p> </p><p>She would cross Styx, trudge deep into the dark, dank earth, and fist fight the fuckin’ Titans sealed in Tartarus if it meant she would protect her godfather. He was her only family, and family, Sirius had told her, never turned their back. It wouldn’t end like this. He gone, and she trapped on this… This… Glistening hellscape of machine-men and their machine hearts.</p><p> </p><p>Sirius would do the same for her.</p><p> </p><p>She just needed to push on.</p><p> </p><p>“Gonrecmleeen goemdbax het vistax?”</p><p> </p><p>Firstly, however, she should probably get away from the robot that had crept up at her back. Sluggishly, she stood and turned. Her wand was stiff in her hand, cold courage in her palm, concealed behind her leg.</p><p> </p><p>It was a bizarre thing indeed. A man of pipe and wire and blinking lights, curved snout a polished plate of bronze metal. Hermione would have a field day if she saw the thing, if she was able to pick it apart and poke around all its innards.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani only felt dread.</p><p> </p><p>She knew what their fire felt like.</p><p> </p><p>The burn on her arm stung at the reminder.</p><p> </p><p>The machine-man had a gun tight in its own three-fingered motorized grip.</p><p> </p><p>“I told you, I don’t know what you or anyone else are saying. Please, will you-“</p><p> </p><p>“Het vistax, nowgekax.”</p><p> </p><p>It had spoken, if the bleeps and deadpanned reverberation could be called speaking, coolly first, and now it was insistent.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani knew what came next.</p><p> </p><p>The machine-man reached for its sleeve, where Leilani knew a button laid in wait beneath a plate. As soon as he pressed that bloody thing, more, like a shaken wasp nest, would swarm right here. As had happened on the first roof she had landed on and tried to talk to these fuckin’ things.</p><p> </p><p>She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.</p><p> </p><p>“Bombarda!”</p><p> </p><p>The problem with machine-men, Leilani had found, unlike fighting wizards and witches, was they were mercilessly fast. Unconstrained by human limitations, their bodies, quite literally, a well-oiled instrument that could reel at the drop of a galleon.</p><p> </p><p>The best course of action, she thought in her limited exposure, was to blast the things apart as quickly as possible. Turn them into dust and debris, and a puddle of grease. Only when they were dilapidated piles was it safe. Their arms, when dismembered… Moved. They could still shoot their peculiar guns.</p><p> </p><p>She’d learned that lovely bit of knowledge on the second roof.</p><p> </p><p>The people in domed helmets were easier. A simple stupefy normally knocked them out.  </p><p> </p><p>Robots… Not so much. They pulsed and stood right back up again.</p><p> </p><p>Bloody bastards.</p><p> </p><p>The spell hit its mark, as the machine-man went lurching back, crashing into, Leilani assumed, the aerial steeple of the skyscraper they were on. He surged apart in a hail of sizzling wire, denting the aerial tower, his voice beeping to silence.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, it wasn’t before he fired a shot.</p><p> </p><p>Her right arm really <em>was</em> slower.</p><p> </p><p>She crumpled.</p><p> </p><p>Dropped like a Griffin with its wing slashed.</p><p> </p><p>Moaning.</p><p> </p><p>Mordred-</p><p> </p><p>The pain had a horrible heat to it, an inferno that engulfed her stomach. Her hands snapped to her abdomen, pressing, pushing, trying anything to stop the heat spreading. There was an abrupt roll of nausea, a sickening rocking to the world around her until it all smeared together hideously.  </p><p> </p><p>Bile climbed up her throat, cruel and harsh and sour.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani, deserted, exhausted, terrified, in a world not her own, curled into something fetal, a lump of primeval safety one could only find in the womb.</p><p> </p><p>Her hand trembled violently as it dragged away, quivering in front of her face.  </p><p> </p><p>Blood on her hand.</p><p> </p><p>Blood at her stomach.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been shot… Shot and…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Focus. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Feel. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Feel your way to safety. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Yes. She needed somewhere safe. Somewhere she could breathe and rest and, Merlin, not bleed out and be hunted like a feral animal by metal men and wizards with star bright swords.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Feel… Feel… Feel…</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Her vision centred, pinpricked, alert-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>There. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>A grate by the demolished machine-man.</p><p> </p><p>She could <em>feel, </em>and that was the best way she could ever describe this peculiar sensing, a void there.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Empty. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Safe.</p><p> </p><p>She tried to sit up.</p><p> </p><p>She tumbled back down.</p><p> </p><p>Fuck.</p><p> </p><p>She clambered for her wand, patting the floor before she felt the wood between her fingers. She raised it, aimed-</p><p> </p><p>“Bom-“</p><p> </p><p>The wood was a… A stump. Ragged.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Broken. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Her hand fell to the floor with a thump.</p><p> </p><p>Her broken wand trundled away from her lax fingers.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t reach for it again.</p><p> </p><p>She could do only one thing.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani cried, coiled in on herself.</p><p> </p><p>Wracking sobs that cleaved through her.</p><p> </p><p>Hot and messy and fearful, she cried, bleeding and alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Sirius… I’m so sorry… I tried… I tried… I…”</p><p> </p><p>Leilani could never do anything right, could she? She nearly got Ron killed in their first year. She nearly got Ginny killed in her second. The danger she had put her friends through constantly, werewolves and dementors and-</p><p> </p><p>Now she had failed Sirius.</p><p> </p><p>Failed him as she had failed poor Cedric.</p><p> </p><p>Failed him as she had failed Amos, when she had to carry his dead son out that terrible maze, and lay him at his father’s feet and, even now, even here, she could feel the cool, lifeless weight of Cedric in her arms, limp, so limp and-</p><p> </p><p>Merlin, perhaps this is what she deserved, for all the destruction and ruin she wrought by her mere presence alone.</p><p> </p><p>To die here, friendless, afraid, so very afraid, in a place so far away from home, after, anew, failing to protect those she loved from what she brought to them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Don’t listen to that voice. Never listen to that voice. It will only lead you into the dark. Focus, Lela. You can do it. I know you can. You’ve grown so much, but your journey is far from over, my love. Focus.”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She blinked through her tears at the gentle voice at her ear.</p><p> </p><p>No… Not <em>at</em> her ear… <em>In </em>her <em>head</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She knew that voice, despite only ever hearing it scream in a flash of putrid green.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Lily. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leilani could hear her mother.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered then.</p><p> </p><p>Felt it deep in her chest, right in her heart, burning brighter than any star sword or spell or bolt from a machine-man.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani was never alone.</p><p> </p><p>Not truly.</p><p> </p><p>Not ever.</p><p> </p><p>Those who loved her once upon a time, and those she loved in return, were never really far from her side. As long as she could picture their faces, remember the sound of their voices, they were with her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Always. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>And where there was love, love that could never die, there was no reason for fear, despair or hatred.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“That’s it. Focus, come on… That’s my girl. Focus, lift you hand… Lift it and concentrate…” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Unbidden, her hand lifted, fingers splayed. It shook fiercely, swathed in her own blood, but held true.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Stretch out. Feel… Feel the grate. Feel how stiff it is. Hold onto that sensation. Feel the bolts and the screws and the places it has been welded. Feel the ruts of how it has been sculpted. <span class="u">Feel </span>it.”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Just a little more…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Bind yourself around that feeling. Hold onto it with everything you have. Breathe it, feel it, taste it, hear it. Hold… Pull!”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Her hand screwed into a fist to the wail of crushing metal, and, with a keen tug towards herself, the slatted grate came tearing off, sailing over her head, over the flank of the roof.</p><p> </p><p>She thought she heard her mother’s laughter flowing in the wind, away with the grate.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Crawl. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She snatched up her broken wand, bleeding and wounded, Leilani crawled. Inch by inch, bit by bit, excruciating creep by agonizing crawl, she clambered closer to the open hole in the side of the roof.</p><p> </p><p>It was dark inside the hole. Dark and black and murky. The air stale and musty. Yet, it was somewhere. Somewhere inside, far from the roofs and the robots and the reinforced men.</p><p> </p><p>Somewhere to relax.</p><p> </p><p>Just for a little while.</p><p> </p><p>Merlin, she had been going for what now? Twenty-eight hours straight?</p><p> </p><p>The Ministry of Magic felt like a lifetime ago.</p><p> </p><p>A hazy dream.</p><p> </p><p>What she wouldn’t give to see Malfoy Senior’s, of all people, face again.</p><p> </p><p>Tired. She was so bloody tired.  </p><p> </p><p>She <em>needed </em>rest.</p><p> </p><p>Then she would gain her bearings, learn where exactly the Veil had spat her out, before she would find Sirius.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>would, </em>if it was the last thing she did.</p><p> </p><p>Her hand slapped onto the lip of the cavity, smearing it with a trail of her blood. <em> One. Two. Three.</em></p><p> </p><p>With a howl of pain, Leilani pitched herself up, over, and collapsed into the dank ventilation shaft.</p><p> </p><p>Sirius would not be Cedric.</p><p> </p><p>There would never be <em>another</em> Cedric Diggory.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>Anakin Skywalker didn’t track down the Progenitor until nightfall, and even then, perhaps ‘track’ was the wrong term to use, as the girl was still missing, and their last lead was the set of apartment suits in the Hyperion tower of the Senate District.</p><p> </p><p>The girl had proven herself to be… Swift of foot. Too fast to catch. Their only cues to her snaking route across the mainland of Coruscant had been the reports pinging off the security droids and personnel on each of the towers she landed upon. Always by roof, someone landed, a red-haired young girl they informed the Security Hub before the transmissions cut off. They demanded ID to be validated as was protocol with the rigorous defence of the Senate District, and when that was not given they devolved into trespasser mode.</p><p> </p><p>By the time Obi-wan and Anakin arrived on the scene, the personnel were unconscious, but comparatively fine once awakened, and the security droids were demolished screw by screw.</p><p> </p><p>That cycle had passed six times before the roof with the shattered ventilation shaft, a broken chair leg, a busted security droid and scorch marks from a blaster.</p><p> </p><p>An entry point.</p><p> </p><p>An entry point with a lone bloody hand-print on the twisted frame, and a trail of blood from the edge of the roof.</p><p> </p><p>The girl was heading downwards, Obi-wan had assured him.</p><p> </p><p>Possibly injured and alarmed too, he had cautioned Anakin.</p><p> </p><p>The two had taken the elevator to the lowest rung, and began a steady comb of the Hyperion upwards, hoping, if she was heading downwards, they could cut her off.</p><p> </p><p>Thus far, all they had uncovered were sleepy Senators disgruntled by being buzzed awake by a Jedi and his Padawan at their door.  </p><p> </p><p>It was at the top floor, the closest to the roof, Obi-wan and Anakin had split. His Master had chosen to take the rooms two sets over, the only other exit to the ventilation shaft, and left the back chambers to Anakin to search.</p><p> </p><p>The rooms were empty of all life. The Senator who normally sheltered there was on a diplomatic mission back on his home world of Vjun. There was nothing to see. Not a cushion out of place, or a light left on, or a rug upturned in haste.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing to see until Anakin passed the ajar bedroom door.</p><p> </p><p>He could not tell you why he stopped there, at the crux, staring into the dark, but he did. He stopped and peered in, transfixed.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin could not see her in the dimness of the chambers, nevertheless, he could sense her there, somewhere, in that bedroom. He could sense her as one would sense a flickering flame next to their skin even if blinded.</p><p> </p><p>A tiny spark in the dark.</p><p> </p><p>Semi-fearful of being burned, partially exhilarated at the heat.  </p><p> </p><p>He had not known, never realized, how… Bitterly cold he had been, before sensing that heat.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin skirted closer, cautious as his Master had warned him to be, thumbing the frame of the door before he pushed it open.</p><p> </p><p>His boots thudded on the carpet, echoing the steady beat of his heart.</p><p> </p><p>The bed was made meticulously, low rising on the floor, too flat to slip beneath. There were no dressers to duck behind. Even the sweeping window was screened with holo-blinds, not curtains one could hide behind.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, impossibly so, he <em>knew </em>she was there, someplace.</p><p> </p><p>Crouching low, he unhooked his Lightsaber from his belt and placed it on the floor, rolling it forward into the swelling darkness of the chamber. Perhaps she would show if she knew he was unarmed.</p><p> </p><p>"I know you are here. I know you can hear my voice. I come as a friend."</p><p> </p><p>He spoke in Aurebesh, slightly jilted, it was never his best language, as Obi-wan had requested he did in hopes there were some, if but a few, crossovers in its root language of Protobesh she might recognize.</p><p> </p><p>The concealed locker beside the bed broke away from the wall, creaking open in a spot unseen when closed.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ah, a cache. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Of course the Senator would have a hidey-hole stashed in his wall. </p><p> </p><p>Anakin saw her in the streak of silver moonlight filtering in from the window, pale and fiery, huddled at the bottom of the locker in a tangle of limbs.</p><p> </p><p>He could not see her <em>well</em> in the dim light of the moon, but there was no forgetting those eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"Friend?"</p><p> </p><p>Her voice was dark and soft like soot. In the dusk of the room, the pregnant moon outside their only source of light, Anakin grinned brilliantly, placing his hand at his chest, thumping.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, friend. Me… <em>Friend</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>He took a long stride forward; she yanked the door to the locker until only those unbearably green eyes were visible through the slither.</p><p> </p><p>He paused.</p><p> </p><p>Right.</p><p> </p><p>Yes.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Careful. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Not a tactic Anakin was used to, or was rather <em>good</em> at mind you, he was always too impulsive Obi-wan complained, however, he tried. Gradually, he crept closer, step by step. He made sure to keep his hands at his side, in clear view.</p><p> </p><p>The door didn’t close any further.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, neither did it open.</p><p> </p><p>When he was close enough, in reaching distance of the locker door, he sank to his knees on the plush carpet. Eye to hidden eye. The warmth blooming throughout him was hampered by the stirrings of icy, gristly panic dangling from upon high like stalactites of the ice caves of Ilum.</p><p> </p><p>Panic not his own.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Friend</em>… Help. I’m here to help.”</p><p> </p><p>The green eye between the crack did not so much as blink at him, although there was some tinge of recognition haunting the hood of the visible eye. Perhaps she  understood the word, it was clear she understood <em>something</em> in his voice, but it could very well have a different meaning to her. He stretched out gently, stole the edge of the locker door and-</p><p> </p><p>She went to jerk it shut completely.</p><p> </p><p>“Friend! I’m here as a friend…<em> Friend</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>His hand dropped from the door as she blinked at him. Anew, he raised his hand to his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p> </p><p>He gestured towards her.</p><p> </p><p>Silence was his only answer.</p><p> </p><p>Again, he attempted communication, bringing his hand back to himself over again.</p><p> </p><p>“Anakin…”</p><p> </p><p>There it was. The spur, unbelievably green, the heat simmering in the darkness. He felt it splash at his bones, like molten lava, pressing and scouring his very being. Branding him. It was warm here. So incredibly warm. It was all too much, this sudden heat dilating at his core, and, puzzlingly, not nearly enough. </p><p> </p><p>Anakin would never get to open the locker door as the Progenitor did so herself, the squeal of it nearly overshadowing her smoky voice.</p><p> </p><p>“Leilani.”</p><p> </p><p>He beamed.</p><p> </p><p>“Leilani? That’s a beautiful name. I-… Leilani-“</p><p> </p><p>He motioned to himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Anakin.”</p><p> </p><p>She ventured a try, and Anakin’s heart vaulted between the lapping heat frothing in his lungs.</p><p> </p><p>“Anahckihn… Anah.. Ki-hn. Anakin.”</p><p> </p><p>The strength of his smile pleasantly ached on his face, as he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>With the door open, and the moon high, and he so close, Anakin could see her properly now. Everything about her, from brow to dirt smudged freckle, was fire. Bonfire and vigour and passion to the extreme, as if the Force had decided to craft a being from the initial eruption of a supernova.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin would not call her beautiful. In a way, she distinctly was <em>not</em>. Beautiful, to Anakin, reminded him of the Senators, with their pristine dresses and clear, decorated skin, and hair impeccably combed and positioned in intricate forms. Beautiful was something practiced and rehearsed.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani was so very far from<em> anything</em> performed or prepared.  </p><p> </p><p>Her features were sharply etched, sloped and soaring. There was an anarchy to her, her colouring too vivid, rebellion you could taste on the tip of your tongue with a single glance, a feral ferocity that could not be restrained.</p><p> </p><p>No.</p><p> </p><p>Beautiful appeared to be too… Serene, for someone like the Progenitor.</p><p> </p><p>Too insignificant.</p><p> </p><p>Under his gaze, she grimaced.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin spotted the scrap of cloth tied snugly around her arm.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re hurt…”</p><p> </p><p>On instinct, he went to reach for her, to assist, but she recoiled before his fingers could make contact with her arm, bowed knees and nestled form pushing closer to the back of the cramped locker.</p><p> </p><p>He swallowed deeply, a lump grating in his throat.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin wasn’t used to people being… Afraid of him. Circumspect. Vigilant. As if he would strike them down with one blow.</p><p> </p><p><em>This</em> sentiment wasn’t pleasant.</p><p> </p><p>He met her eye, held it, kept it there with his own, and reached, slowly, for the arm again.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani let him.</p><p> </p><p>The knot of cloth fell apart between his deft fingers.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin glanced down.</p><p> </p><p>The bolt burn was bad, but he had seen worse. Nothing a little Sylerian paste couldn’t fix and-</p><p> </p><p>Her hand came away from its resting place between her bent knees and chest, by her stomach, towards him, trembling, open and-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Black. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Blood glistening black in the moonlight</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Oh…</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Pew pew… Pew Pew.”</p><p> </p><p>That, Anakin knew, was not a word. More sound effect by the pitch.</p><p> </p><p>“Pew pew? The security droids did this?”</p><p> </p><p>That could not be right, could it? The Jedi Council had sent out a notice to the Security Hub. No live fire was to be used, if a girl with red hair was spotted. At worst, if they engaged with the Progenitor, they were ordered to use incapacitater rounds. Nothing more.</p><p> </p><p>Yet, Leilani had been hit.</p><p> </p><p>Severely, by the amount of blood on her hand.</p><p> </p><p>The shot at her arm could have been a warning bolt, poorly chosen, but understandable if Leilani was putting up a fight. Anakin had seen what she had done to the Jedi Temple Spire. Nevertheless, a shot to the stomach was a killing blow-</p><p> </p><p>Her head lolled back against the small locker wall, her hand falling beside her, weak.</p><p> </p><p>“Pew pew.”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin slouched nearer, dipping down, reaching to remove her other arm from being wrapped around her waist, but she-</p><p> </p><p>Well, she hissed at him like a Tooka kitten, before she jerked away, as far as the locker would let her.</p><p> </p><p>“Friend…”</p><p> </p><p>The language barrier didn’t seem to impinge on facial expressions. For she glanced to him in what could only be in accusation.</p><p> </p><p>“Pew pew!”</p><p> </p><p>Anakin shook his head, his Padawan braid whipping at his broad shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“No… No more pew pew. Not me… Friend. No pew pew.”</p><p> </p><p>She let him move her arm to the side this time, but she watched him thoroughly, unblinking, wary. Anakin didn’t doubt that if he should do one wrong move, well… He pondered, like the security droids they had observed on the roofs, what size pile his body would become.</p><p> </p><p>The wound was deep, an angry red pit above her hip, high on her stomach, bellow her ribs. Her torn shirt, the same colour and texture as the temporary bandage around her arm, ripped off just above it, soaked with blood.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think you’ve ruptured any organs, but we need to get this wound closed now.”</p><p> </p><p>She examined him, a swift sweep of her gaze up and down. It… it tingled a little. The barest touch of… Something pulsating between the space of his skin and muscle, washing warm.</p><p> </p><p>So hot and-</p><p> </p><p>Anakin held his hand out for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Friend… Help. We-”</p><p> </p><p>He indicated towards her and then himself.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Friends</em>. Come with me.”</p><p> </p><p>She peered down to his outstretched hand, sullen, and for a long while that is all she did. Stare and assess. Anakin sighed as his hand began to fall back to his side, yet-</p><p> </p><p>She reached out and took it.</p><p> </p><p>Small in his own grip.</p><p> </p><p>Delicate like spun glass, but-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Fire. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Fire prowling right beneath her skin, blazing bright and scorching like the heart of a dying star, winding and squirming and-</p><p> </p><p><em>The Force</em>. She had the Force in her blood, in her bones and her eyes, from lash to freckle, <em>everywhere</em>. Not a single scratch or stretch of skin that did not ooze it. Anakin could feel it, and it almost blinded him. Hauled him in. Consumed. She was her own star, with its own gravitational pull, and it was nearly hopeless to combat the drag and lure. She was like a biological necessity. A shot of water and warmth and air right to his system. </p><p> </p><p>And he was <em>drowning </em>in it.</p><p> </p><p>However, fight he did.</p><p> </p><p>They really didn’t have much time, not with that wound still open and weeping.</p><p> </p><p>Nonetheless, he didn’t let go of the smaller hand, he found he couldn’t quite bring himself to, as he used the Force to pull his Lightsaber back to him, where he snapped it back onto his belt holster.</p><p> </p><p>Leilani glanced up to him, overflowing with sounds now that she had seen him use the Force, muddled, fast, coming like comets flying in the sky of Tatooine in meteor season. He could only pluck one word out of the jumble, for she said it more than once.</p><p> </p><p>“Wihzahrd? I… Don’t know what that means-“</p><p> </p><p>Her hand dragged away, and Anakin nearly, very nearly, tried to steal it back before he regained some semblance of composure. She was rambling now, as she heaved herself out of the locker, forcing Anakin backward to make room for her, bracing herself on the frame.</p><p> </p><p>“Unnami wihzahrd eta von wihcca, unla mi. Unla mi wihcca, unla remlun wihzahrd… Hemndic Sirius. Fedona, nermtis bonstoc bashak Sirius von Leilani von Anakin… Semiune uka-”</p><p> </p><p>She hoisted up, onto her feet, and her knees buckled speedily under the added weight.</p><p> </p><p>He grasped her by the shoulders just in time to stop her from face planting the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuamnic shiencel!”</p><p> </p><p>One did not need to know Protobesh to know whatever ‘fuamnic shiencel’ was, it was not something you typically said in polite company. Moreover, she was back to clutching her stomach, stooped over in pain, and Anakin could see fresh blood trickling through her clasped fingers.</p><p> </p><p>Fuamnic shiencel, indeed.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, do not blow me up like the droids for this, but we really do not have the time.”</p><p> </p><p>Before Leilani could do or say much more, Anakin hunched over at her side, locking an arm behind her knees, and with a sweep and a toss, she was up and in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>She hissed again, spitting in Protobesh, but, Anakin thought, she was too weak to fight much more than in words.</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps that was a blessing for both of them.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin preferred all his limbs attached without the possibility of a cybernetic replacement.</p><p> </p><p>It was a peculiar second, he would admit. To have someone in his arms. There was a moment, a flash, where he wasn’t just one form any longer but two. Two heads, four legs, and two hearts he was sure, convinced beyond reason, were beating in tandem. A thump-thump, thump-thump that leapt in his ear.</p><p> </p><p>A beat that encouraged him on as one stumbled in a thud.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin made for the bedroom door, plucking his communicator from his robe pocket with the Force. Drifting it close to his chest, he used, awkwardly, his chin to press the button. The line clicked through with a whine.</p><p> </p><p>“Master? I’ve found the Progenitor. Her name is Leilani and-… She’s badly hurt. You were right, the blood outside <em>was</em> hers. The security droids have been firing live bolts, not incapacitaters. She’s been hit in the abdomen. I don’t think there’s any internal damage, but she is bleeding profusely. We’re heading to the speeders outside now.”</p><p> </p><p>Leilani jolted in his hold as the communicator crackled with Obi-wan’s voice.</p><p> </p><p>“Most unusual. Live bolts you say? The order must have come from the Security Hub but the Council instructed… We will investigate later. For now, I’ll meet you outside Padawan. Good work.”</p><p> </p><p>The line cut off. </p><p> </p><p>Anakin peered down to the girl in his arms. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open, though she valiantly fought off the impending unconsciousness.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s going to be okay. We’ll get you to the healers and they’ll fix you up. Just hold on for a little longer, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>She didn't understand a word he said. He could see from the way the frown on her face deepened. Yet, there was hope, because she met his eye, and something glimmered in the taut space between them, a crackle, a sizzle, a sputter that bought the warmth streaking back to settle over his skin, drenching.</p><p> </p><p>“Anakin… Friend?”</p><p> </p><p>It seemed important, important beyond what Anakin could verbalize, that he gave the... Right answer. As if what came next, whatever it may be, balanced on this one moment, this exact second, on what he chose to say. </p><p> </p><p>“Anakin and Leilani friends, yes.”</p><p> </p><p>The heat burst beneath the surface, a rupture, a thousand neurons firing all at once. </p><p> </p><p>There was no cold, no chasm or emptiness. </p><p> </p><p>Only warmth, a promise, and a newfound friend. </p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A lovely reviewer pointed out seeing The Fifth Element (Film) inspirations in this fic, and it wasn't until I reread last chapter and finished up this draft of chapter three, I've actually drafted up to chapter fifteen on this fic, that I realised, oh shit, there it is! So, yeah, there might be a bit of Lelu here, lmao. Still, I hope you all liked chapter three.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Owie Sith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>"Is there any possibility of utilizing a translation droid to make communication easier?"</p><p>Obi-wan queried Master Yoda, gazing through the open doorway to the chambers beyond. Padawan Anakin stood inside the Temples healing rooms, along with the girl he called Leilani. She had been unconscious for much of their ride to the Temple on the speeder, since Obi-wan had reconvened with his Padawan outside the Hyperion tower in fact, and for many hours since their swift arrival at the Jedi Temple. She had only regained consciousness an hour past, but she was, the healing Masters assured them, nearly entirely healthy already.</p><p>It seemed it would not be easy to keep a Progenitor down for long, partly due to the point that, Master Vokara Che assured, the girl’s Midi-chlorian count made Anakin Skywalker’s appear positively anaemic. Fast healing, conceivably, <em>surely</em>, was the least of all her abilities.</p><p>Yet, since she had aroused with only a flash of blistered pink skin on hip, those privy to the healing chambers, very few in number, had taken to trying to talk to her. Anakin, thus far, was the only one providing anything remotely fruitful, and even then it was slow business, confusing on both their parts Obi-wan thought, as the pair tried to employ hand gestures, onomatopoeias, and, the latest turn of events, Leilani resorting to using healing paste to paint finger-pictures on the chamber wall.</p><p>Yoda, who had been silently watching from beside Obi-wan, leant heavy on his rooted cane.</p><p>"Protobesh the girl speaks. Dead language, it is. Aurebesh its evolution, some crossover but not close enough, I know. Translation no Droid can do. Missing too many words, Protobesh exceedingly complex. Slow, we must be, yet get there we will."</p><p>Obi-wan nodded, having already predicted as such but hoping all the same, and, with no more said, began to enter the chamber, Master Yoda following his footsteps. Immediately, the girl’s gaze snapped towards him, darting from her merry-red-paste-paintings, and anew he was struck terribly with how impossibly green the gaze was.</p><p>Gathering his senses, Obi-wan was quick to stop a little away from the girl, daring not to crowd her too much, and as previously discussed outside this room, placed a hand upon his chest.</p><p>"Obi Wan Kenobi."</p><p>He bowed low, softly, and eased himself back to a stand. Leilani blinked at him, clearly puzzled by this strange, white-robed man, and was only diverted by Anakin patting his own chest, gaining her attention.</p><p>"Anakin Skywalker."</p><p>Anakin gestured towards Obi-wan.</p><p>"Obi Wan Kenobi."</p><p>And dragged the motion over to the last inhabitant of the room.</p><p>"Master Yoda."</p><p>She smiled then, a toothy thing almost as brilliant as her presence, something in the air flickering and pulsing, <em>the Force, </em>thrumming with her emotions, raw and untamed. Stepping away from the wall, she slapped a red-stained hand across her own chest, soiling her healing gown with a comet of scarlet. </p><p>"Leilani Potter."</p><p>Obi-wan nearly swallowed his own tongue. Why? For there was a crossover there, a word that had survived the ages, weathered linguistic advancement, all to be said right here, right now, in understanding. The word?</p><p>"Potter?"</p><p>Obi-wan spluttered. Leilani simply patted her chest once more, grin becoming fierce and dimpled.</p><p>"Leilani Potter."</p><p>Obi-wan’s gaze shot upwards, to her crown of flaming copper curls, ginger, some would call it, <em>orange, </em>others. It appeared Master Yoda came to the same startling conclusion he had.</p><p>“It appears foolish Master Yuric was not. Orange crockery is here, before us now. Most interesting.”</p><p>As fascinating as this surprise was, and as much as the Jedi Council would have to convene and discuss what this could possibly mean in the grander scale, it did not seem to either translate very well to Leilani, or appear all that important to her, as, suddenly, there was a fizz, a sizzle, and a <em>crack. </em></p><p>She was gone.</p><p>Gone with a pop.</p><p>And then-</p><p>
  <em>Crack-</em>
</p><p>Obi-wan jolted, startled, as Leilani appeared out of thin air right before him, only a measly few step away, snatching at his arm, tugging, yanking him towards the wall and her intricate murals.</p><p>Her touch ignited his veins, fire and light throbbing through tendon and muscle and bone marrow, a spur of Force ripping outwards and <em>piercing</em>-</p><p>“It seems she can teleport as well as fly, Master.”</p><p>Obi-wan scowled at his deadpanned Padawan, as he tried to fight down the undignified yelp her abrupt disappearance and reappearance wrenched from his lips, the feeling of star-fire bursting beneath his flesh.</p><p>Anakin, too pleased to see his typically passive Master stunned and unsettled, chuckled just as Leilani dragged Obi-wan as close to the wall as she could where, frantically, she dropped his arm and pointed.</p><p>"Fulmic Sirius!"</p><p>The image she pointed towards, one lost amongst countless, was a very crude looking stick figure with a quite jolly and dramatic moustache and beard. Another finger jab, a new cry.</p><p>“Sirius!”</p><p>Right… Yes, of course! Sirius was not a curse, nor was it an emotional state of being, not a place or planet-</p><p>It was a <em>person.</em></p><p>Obi-wan waved towards the stick-man.</p><p>“Sirius?”</p><p>Leilani seemed delighted, flushed and dimpled and grinning, at finally, <em>finally </em>being understood. And at the first taste of heady recognition, she moved left, incredibly light on her feet, swift as lightening, down the wall to another drawing and pointing once more.</p><p>This one crawled across the brick and stone, condensed and almost panicked in its strokes, as if the mere imagery of it was something to fear, something to weep over, something to… <em>Grieve. </em></p><p>What appeared to be more stick-figures danced around an arch standing proud in the middle, some figures headless, other’s down on the floor, smudges of death and mortality, and it was then Obi-wan realised they were not dancing at all, not quite, but <em>fighting. </em></p><p>"Bad juju! Boom boom! Death mumsan avric mula! Uh… Megkel. Megkel!"</p><p>She fisted her hands before herself, one a ghastly tarnished red, and locked her knuckles against each other, one side bashing the other, the other pushing back, struggling, fighting, battling for the ground between her arms.</p><p>Obi-wan understood immediately.</p><p>"War?"</p><p>She clicked, and clapped, and shot her hands out as wide as they could stretch, that throbbing in the air turning heavy and thick.</p><p>"War! Big War!"</p><p>Obi-wan edged closer to the wall, fingered the still drying paste, thumb creeping over the face of someone either sleeping or dead. It was the hope in him that wished it were the former, but the pragmatist who knew it was the latter.</p><p>"You were fighting a war?"</p><p>Again, she gestured towards the stick-figure of the man she called Sirius.</p><p>"Peshew!"</p><p>Rather dramatically, her hands shot to her own chest, and she stumbled back, against the wall, as if she herself had been shot down. Only when the point of her display was well and truly made, did she jump back from the wall, towards the battleground painting, and patted at the arch standing proud in the heart of death and decline.</p><p>“Peshew Sirius! Sirius febunamela…”</p><p>She stared bottomlessly at the arch, dark and down, voice drifting low and soft like a candle caught in a storm.</p><p>“Febunamela.”</p><p>There was no need for a crossover, or any identification of the word, to understand it felt like something <em>lost. </em></p><p> Deliberately, gingerly, Obi-wan crept towards Leilani’s side, his own gaze trailing over the hollowing bow of red paint with a smudge rippling in the centre.</p><p>“Sirius was shot and fell through this arch? No… Not arch… Shroud. That’s a Shroud, is it not? Sirius was shot and fell through the Shroud.” </p><p>Leilani gave on last stroke to the painting before she pointed towards herself.</p><p>"Samkan… Samkan Sirius. Gernliemn von ikkaba Veil. Leilani… Veil… Sirius. Leilani, Veil, Sirius. Samkan Sirius."</p><p>And there it was. Veil, <em>Shroud</em>, a cusp among so few. Leilani, Shroud, Sirius. An equation easy to make.</p><p>Gentle, careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact, or as much as he could through her thin healing gown, wishing to keep his wits about him, Obi-wan laid a hand upon her rather delicate shoulder.</p><p>The star-fire burned up his fingers, through his arm, settling and inciting something deep within the cavity of his chest, winding like snakes hewn from crystal and sunshine.</p><p>
  <em>Concentrate. </em>
</p><p>“Samkan means save, doesn’t it? Sirius was shot, he fell through the Shrou-… The Veil, and you dove in after to save him.”</p><p>Master Yoda’s voice wound out from behind, and Obi-wan nearly, <em>again, </em>startled at the unexpected noise. What had gotten into him?</p><p>
  <em>Oh, he knew. </em>
</p><p>For his hand, despite there being no excuse or logical reason for it to be, still laid gently on the delicate shoulder, the skin that flowered warmth and life and Force, and something that glistened.</p><p>“Fighting who she was?”</p><p>Leilani blinked, and blinked some more, and all she did <em>was </em>blink, plainly baffled by the question she could not understand. Obi-wan gestured her way.</p><p>"War? You?"</p><p>Once More he motioned towards her, and then to the cloaked stick figures around the crudely drawn Shroud.</p><p>Something brilliant sparked in her green, green gaze.</p><p>"Sith Larduc Voldemort. Sith Maglek... <em>Bad juju</em>."</p><p>That-</p><p><em>Well</em>. That was disconcerting, for, again, a crossover term was found and, arguably, one of the worst options there had been to discover common ground.</p><p>Anakin piped up from the edge of the wall.</p><p>"You were fighting the Sith?"</p><p>Leilani skirted down the wall, to the far end where, in red paste, a towering figure twisted in knots stood, something coiling laying at its feet. Pointing to the… Thing, not quite human looking, and then to herself, she regarded them with an almost frantic sort of desperation.</p><p>Desperation to be understood.</p><p>"Sith Voldemort. Sith-manulem Bellatrix… Sith… Bad juju!"</p><p>Drawing her hand away from the wall for the final time, she tapped at the scar splintering down her forehead.</p><p>“Bad juju! Benoshel nivbein dahsgael huneds destiknee selvcor-“</p><p>Obi-wan cut in, plucking at the only similar thread in a weave of garbled misunderstanding.</p><p>"Destiny?"</p><p>Leilani nodded wildly.</p><p>At least physical communication was not so complicated to transfer over the language barrier.</p><p>"Destiny… Me war Sith Voldemort."</p><p>Ostensibly, healing wasn't the only thing she did fast. She was picking up language swiftly too. A blessing, to be sure, but still a long, winding road to traverse. And, Obi-wan thought, marginally tragic that her first half-formed sentence in this new world she found herself in included the word <em>war</em> and <em>Sith </em>within its syntax.</p><p>Nevertheless, small steps towards unhindered communication aside, <em>what </em>exactly that sentence meant concerned him more than, possibly, it should have.</p><p>"It's your destiny to battle this Sith Lord."</p><p>Her hands dropped to her side, swinging limply, passion lost. She seemed so sad then, staring at the paintings. Sad and young and too small.</p><p>"Find… Sirius. Find Sirius... Hevmun Horlum. War Sith Lord. Save… All."</p><p>
  <em>Save all. </em>
</p><p>A heavy burden to bare for any one of any age.</p><p>"You must find Sirius and go home to fight the Sith."</p><p>Master Yoda, however, interjected.</p><p>"No way back there is. One way is the Shroud. Her war over millennia ago. Sith lost. Yet, here she is, and perhaps new battle close. Train, I think. Strong in the Force she is, but emotional. Uncontrolled."</p><p>Possibly, there was another crossover word, imaginably one Leilani did not quite like, as she squared out, sharpening her lithe frame to something keen and sleek, nose curling in irritation. She looked-</p><p>
  <em>Deadly.  </em>
</p><p>And angry.</p><p>"Sirius! Dremkek Sirius!... Sirius. <em>Uncontrolled</em>-… Buckakavis Lumosteron! Van mislere umna furaman! Usa groogalin mother fucker!"</p><p>Oh-</p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>Fairly… Creative then, the Progenitor idiom, certainly.</p><p>A tap of Yoda’s staff against the marble, and the old Master merely laughed brightly.</p><p>“Spirited, indeed.”</p><p>A hiss in the air impended, and Obi-wan could feel it sizzling, growing and-</p><p>He stepped between the two, amongst Master and Progenitor, and held his hands aloft.</p><p>"You want to find Sirius?"</p><p>The energy-</p><p>The Force in the air abated, fizzling to a gentle hum, not quite gone, never gone around Leilani, Obi-wan suspected, but… Soothed, and the young woman simply blinked over at him.</p><p>"We'll help you find Sirius… <em>Find Sirius</em>."</p><p>He motioned to the crooked Shroud on the wall.</p><p>"There are seven Shrouds. <em>Seven</em>."</p><p>A blank stare that spun engrossed as Obi-wan held up seven fingers to aid the translation of his words.</p><p>"We'll look at the other six. Sirius could have come through one of them."</p><p>Pointing to his own eye, he flashed six with his fingers over to the focused face.</p><p>"We'll look. <em>Find Sirius</em>."</p><p>A frenzied nod.</p><p>“Find Sirius!”</p><p>“Yes! Find Sirius. Six Shrouds.”</p><p>She twisted the strange tongue out, tasting vowels.</p><p>“Six… Shrouds. Find Sirius… At… Six Shrouds.”</p><p>Obi-wan’s smile was met with her own dazzling one, but the moment was short lived as the Progenitor seemingly came crumbling in on herself, cagey, stealing five steps closer to him with her quick, quick feet.</p><p>This close he could sip star-dust and moonshine and-</p><p>"Sith Wizahrd…. Sith…"</p><p>Her voice was low, hushed and rushed. Obi-wan frowned deeply.</p><p>"Sith?"</p><p>She pointed to the Shroud on the wall, and then, disconcertingly, <em>upwards. </em></p><p>"The roof?"</p><p>He asked, and she repeated the motion all over again, ending in a tap to her red-smeared chest.</p><p>"Sith… Fumlict Sith von bustgard."</p><p>Sith, roof, her-</p><p>The thought sinks inside him like a setting sun, skies darkening under cloud.</p><p>No stars.</p><p>No moon.</p><p>No light.</p><p>Only dread.</p><p>"You can sense the Sith… And you felt one on the roof."</p><p>She touched at the peculiar scar on her forehead.</p><p>“Owie! Burnlac, burnlac. <em>Owie</em> Sith!”</p><p>The scar must… Burn? <em>Burn </em>when in the presence of Sith. And, if it had hurt on the roof-</p><p>
  <em>Owie indeed.</em>
</p><p>From over his shoulder, he met Yoda’s eye, no longer merrily bright.</p><p>The old Master was concerned too.</p><p>"Careful we must be. Search, but careful. Sith here, Progenitor in danger could be. Why droids fired live rounds, feasibly. Sith would not like Progenitor. Stronger. Harder to control or influence. Challenge to plans. Order to fire someone must have granted. Trace order-"</p><p>“Find the Sith.”</p><p>Obi-wan finished.</p><p>Find Sith. Find Sirius. Find <em>sanity. </em></p><p>“If this Sirius fellow has come through another Shroud, he could be in danger too.”</p><p>Master Yoda nodded soberly.</p><p>“Stay here for today, leave with young Skywalker and Leilani tomorrow. Find Sirius and return. Visit Security hub I will with Master Windu. Discover breach, we must.”</p><p>
  
</p><p>“This is where we will be staying for the night.”</p><p>Standing at the edge of the temple chamber door, Leilani Potter regarded Anakin Skywalker from outside the room.</p><p>“Find Sirius. Six Shrouds.”</p><p>Anakin exhaled long and low, shaking his head as he tried, seemingly unsuccessfully, to mime morning for the fourteenth time.</p><p>“Go in the morning. Master-… Obi-wan must prep our flight and speak with the Council… And you’re not understanding a word I say, are you?”</p><p>Leilani shuffled her feet at the crux of the door, but she did not enter.</p><p>“Find Sirius. Six Shrouds.”</p><p>One-word sentences then.</p><p>“Later.”</p><p>“Lahtur?”</p><p>Anakin grinned and nodded.</p><p>“<em>Later</em>.”</p><p>Finally. Some understanding and-</p><p>Leilani bent down on her haunches, flicking her wrist and letting go of the object in her hand.</p><p>The jar of healing paste she had stolen from the Healing rooms rolled across the bolted floor, bouncing to a stop at Anakin’s feet. She stood again, grinned, and pointed to the little pot.</p><p>“Lahterr!”</p><p>Anakin chuckled, part joyful, part despairing.</p><p>“No… That’s a Jar. <em>Jar.”</em></p><p>Leilani indicated over her shoulder, to the corridor beyond.</p><p>“Find Sirius six Shrouds umamalam?”</p><p>Lurching over to a chair, Anakin sank down deep into the cushions, face dipping into his hands.</p><p>It was going to be a long day.</p><p>A <em>very </em>long day.</p><p>The sound of cautious footsteps creeping closer tickled his ears.</p><p>“Leilani mahke Skyweaver conluma-… Sad?”</p><p>When his hands fell from his face, Anakin spotted Leilani in the room, peering at him curiously.</p><p>
  <em>Woefully. </em>
</p><p>As hard as this was for them, it must have been harder for her still. Dropped in a strange world with no one who spoke your language, fired at and chased and injured, only to still not be understood on the most basic level.</p><p>Anakin’s hands dropped into his lap, and he tried to smile as softly as he could.</p><p>“No… Leilani, Anakin friends. Not sad… Frustrated. Trying. Anakin <em>trying</em>.”</p><p>She peered around herself then, as if searching for something, stroking at her hip only to find it empty.</p><p>That did not stop her, however, as she came to the centre of the room, sat down crossed legged, and patted at the spot in front of her determinedly.</p><p>“Rymla! Rymla!”</p><p>Carefully and inquisitively, Anakin shadowed her movement, slipping to the floor before her. Only once he was settled did she move, scooting on her legs to get closer, so close their knees knocked, straightening her back, and holding her hands out before herself, as one would if they were cupping water from a running stream.</p><p>Those green eyes slipped shut.</p><p>
  <em>Meditation. </em>
</p><p>Fantastic.</p><p>One might have thought you could get away from such tedious things with a Progenitor, but clearly-</p><p>“Lumos-Avanire.”</p><p>A light sparked between her palms, almost a blinding white, hot and growing, rolling into a tight little ball the size of a fist, whirling and drumming like a heartbeat.</p><p>
  <em>His heartbeat. </em>
</p><p>That was <em>his </em>heartbeat, Anakin realized.</p><p>A steady thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.</p><p>The Progenitor-</p><p>Leilani, she was… She was holding his heartbeat between her gentle, scarred hands.</p><p>Her lashes fluttered, green eyes bright, smile splitting across her speckled face.</p><p>“Usa.”</p><p>Anakin frowned.</p><p>“Usa?... <em>You? </em>As in me?”</p><p>“Usa!”</p><p>She jutted her hands out sharply, still ablaze by the ball of beating light, and, slowly, Anakin cupped his own hands.</p><p>“I can’t do what you do-“</p><p>She ignored him, stretching out, creeping her hands close to his and… <em>Tipping.</em></p><p>The ball of light slipped, hovering, held within his own hands and-</p><p>It felt like her. Like light seeping through the places where atoms danced, and the hollows where wind could freeze, where water ran backwards, and thoughts hovered between land and dream. Slowly, her hands came to slip around his own, fingers tracing down the side of his palm, resting against the joint of his wrist.</p><p>“Hamlev.”</p><p>
  <em>Hold. </em>
</p><p>Anakin thought it might mean hold, and hold he did, to the sense, to the Force, to the burning beat between his hands.</p><p>
  <em>Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. </em>
</p><p>No.</p><p>Not just one beat.</p><p><em>Two</em>. Another, quieter, kinder, pounding between the beats.</p><p>
  <em>Hers. </em>
</p><p>Leilani’s smile grew.</p><p>“Usa!”</p><p>Anakin stared down at the throbbing orb of light.</p><p>“Me… I’m doing that too?”</p><p>“Pumva.”</p><p>
  <em>Push. </em>
</p><p>How did he know that meant push? Why would-</p><p><em>The Force</em>.</p><p>She was made of it, sculpted and shaped and sewn from it, it sang in her blood, and glimmered in her eye, and shined from the fire of her hair and-</p><p>And she could speak <em>through</em> it, rudimentary senses at best, push and pull and all holds, if there was someone <em>else</em> there to push and pull and sing right back.</p><p>Eyes slipping shut, Anakin stretched out, timid, probing, and plucked.</p><p>The ball in his hand kindled, burning brighter, growing even at this shy touch.</p><p>Leilani laughed delightedly, and, idly, Anakin thought she understood now.</p><p>
  <em>Trying. </em>
</p><p>The ball settled before it swirled, twisting in on itself. Anakin thought he sensed something… A tug, yes, coy, at his braid.</p><p>Now it was Anakin’s turn to chuckle vibrantly.</p><p>“That’s my Padawan braid. What? You don’t like it?”</p><p>The light in his palms positively tickled.</p><p>She thought it looked… Funny.</p><p>An image flashed between his eyes. Some sort of small creature, a rodent, a sweep of a bald tail.</p><p>His chuckle morphed to a flushed laugh.</p><p>“That’s just rude.”</p><p>The sensation between his hand changed, rolling to something… Small. Alone. <em>Lost. </em></p><p>“Find Sirius six Shroud?”</p><p>His mouth opened-</p><p>“Late-“</p><p>And closed. In its place, Anakin focused down at his hands, touched out anew and tried, tried as hard as he could to picture sunrise, how it feels on the skin, rising light being blinked from sleepy eyes-</p><p>“Morning.”</p><p>Leilani said, and Anakin grinned.</p><p>“Morning!”</p><p>She practically bounced where she sat, shuffling impossibly closer, so close they almost shared the same breath, leaning over the ball of light.</p><p>Once more, her eyes crept shut, a crease of concentration puckering her brows low, and the light altered, elongating, shaping, sprouts lengthening and fattening until, between them, white and bright stood a hovering… Building of some sort. Capped, carved from stone, it was an imposing structure, but the feel of it, the sensations over the Force were… Warm. Warm and loving and caring.</p><p>“Hogwarts.”</p><p>Anakin stared over at her, haloed in the light of the Force.</p><p>“That’s your home, isn’t it?”</p><p>She nodded; voice pitched smooth.</p><p>“<em>Home</em>.”</p><p>Emboldened by the progress, perhaps as foolhardy as Obi-wan accused Anakin of being at times, Anakin reached out swiftly, prodding and-</p><p>The building churned to something dark, a door with deadbolts and chains and a damp dark hole where a child was inside, locked in, crying for parents long gone, murdered, and-</p><p>Leilani yanked her hands back, scurrying away on her hands and feet, stumbling before standing.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“</p><p>She jabbed an accusatory finger at him.</p><p>“Rude!”</p><p>And, of course, Obi-wan decided that was the perfect time to come strolling into the room, gaze glancing between the Padawan still sitting on the floor, now empty handed, and the Progenitor looking as if she was going to start trying to kick his shins.</p><p>His Master’s gaze zeroed in on him, shoulders drooping in exasperation.</p><p>“Anakin, what did you do now?”</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Blood, Bone and Breath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>From what Obi-Wan Kenobi could see through the glass partition leading out to the balcony, Leilani was doing nothing but standing there leaning against the railing. He thought, however, deeper than vision could see, she might have been trying to hold her own universe together by the severity of her back, the hunch of her shoulders, and the brace of her feet.</p><p>She looked sturdy, he thought, but wilting like a flower planted in the desert.   </p><p>It was only as he slipped out the door and onto the stone and steel terrace that he saw what truly kept the girl stiff and stationary.</p><p>Cradled in her hands, upon her index finger, was a small, airborne creature of some kind. Hairy bellied, long with wiggling feelers, its wings stretched out from its back, paper thin, resplendent in red and gold, the colours merging and swirling as spry as sunset on golden sands.</p><p>“Leilani?”</p><p>The creature vanished with a tiny puff of pale light, the same light, almost too white, Obi-wan had walked in on Anakin holding just a few hours prior, as the young woman in question glanced his way.</p><p>She must have made the creature herself, guided Force into a new life to hold in a quivering hand.</p><p>
  <em>Remarkable. </em>
</p><p>Then why when she smiled, Obi-wan thought, with such enchantment quite literally at her fingertips, did it not quite reach her eye?</p><p>“Force…”</p><p>Lifting the hand that had held the creature so carefully, she facetiously brandished at the air around them.</p><p>“Everywhere… Here. Make Lelu… Betvonmere?”</p><p>Betvonmere-</p><p>A pulse in the air, a beat that started weak but grew sharper, faster.</p><p>
  <em>Ah. </em>
</p><p>“Better? Being here makes you stronger?”</p><p>She tasted the word with a roll of her tongue.</p><p>“Stronger?”</p><p>A stilted nod, and she echoed herself across the breeze.</p><p>“<em>Stronger</em>.”</p><p>Regarding the horizon splayed out before them, the smile fell from her face, and Obi-wan crossed the small distance between to rest beside her by the balcony railing.</p><p>From so high up, Coruscant looked almost peaceful. Looks could be deceiving, he thought.</p><p>In more ways than one.</p><p>“Is that what happened with Anakin?”</p><p>Her eyes darted his way, though she did not turn to face him, the heated glare was enough of a response he supposed with a rocky chuckle.</p><p>“Anakin <em>rude.”</em></p><p>Her hand raised anew, fingers flexing, pausing, before she tapped at her temple.</p><p>“Rude. Push… Far. See what shouldn’t see.”</p><p>Now it was Obi-Wan’s turn to nod, an easy, anticipated passage of movement when it came to Anakin Skywalker doing what he should <em>not </em>be doing.</p><p>“Yes, Anakin does have a habit of crossing boundaries more often than not.”</p><p>Sighing, however, he spun her way, resting on the crux of his elbow perched on the upmost fence bar.</p><p>“But he means well. He’s terribly upset with himself, sulking in his room as he is. He believes he’s made you mad.”</p><p>It was hard to know exactly how much was getting through that terrible thick language barrier, but something must have crossed by the way her jaw rolled, a jumping muscle chewing words that tasted sour by the wince of her green eye.</p><p>“No mad… <em>Scared</em>.”</p><p>Obi-wan snickered.</p><p>“Anakin scared? I think not-“</p><p>The realisation came swift and hard.</p><p>Not mad… Scared.</p><p>
  <em>Her. </em>
</p><p>“<em>You</em>. You mean you, don’t you?”</p><p>She shuffled at the edge of the balcony, a tense sort of scuffle where the soles of her shoes scraped against the light stone, and purposefully turned to face the skyline. Even with only half her face visible through the stance and fall of shockingly red hair, Obi-Wan could see the drawn line of her mouth.</p><p>Of course, Anakin had told him what had transpired after Obi-Wan had entered the room, Leilani shouldering her way passed and storming off onto the balcony with one more pointed ‘Rude!’ thrown over her shoulder.</p><p>The two had been trying to talk, in any conductive way possible, and somewhere along the way something had gone wrong. Anakin had seen something, a crying child in a damp dark place and-</p><p>Oh.</p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Oh. </em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>See what shouldn’t see. </em>
</p><p>“That vision he saw of the closet and the child… That was your memory, wasn’t it?”</p><p>There was no need for crossover words, no need to wonder what got through the language barrier or not.</p><p>Her silence said enough.</p><p>Obi-wan slid his hand across the railing, body following, not quite touching, but as close as he dared to be without being blinded and winded by the spark in her skin, hoping that proximity might offer some faint sort of comfort to the clearly disgruntled Progenitor.</p><p>“There’s no reason to be scared here. We will not harm you.”</p><p>Her cheeks puffed and-</p><p>She huffed at him.</p><p>She whirled then, gracefully, like water flowing in a ravine, spinning to face him head on, hip propped against the railing, leaning in closer still, voice a murmured wisp.</p><p>“Force everywhere here. Not way back home. Force only… Inside. Around Friends. Family. In us. No outside. Only within. Here… <em>Everywhere</em>.”</p><p>Anew, Obi-Wan nodded.</p><p>“Yes. It flows through all things, moving us in mysterious-“</p><p>She cut him off with a harsh slap of a hand upon her own chest, fingers curling into the cloth of her tunic almost cruelly.</p><p>“<em>Here</em>. Force here. Me Force. Blood… Bone… Breath. <em>Me</em>.”</p><p>Sluggishly, tenderly, she reached out that same hand that had been so cruel upon herself, and placed it upon his own chest, smooth and gentle and filled with kindling star-fire.</p><p>His chest ignited, swallowing, pulling, and he could feel the heat lace down his stomach, into his legs and hands and hair and-</p><p>“Derman… Uh… Hollow.”</p><p>The hand dropped away, and the insult stung before Obi-Wan realized what she was truly trying to say.</p><p>“We are not created of the Force quite like you are.”</p><p>“Me… Tuvmar… Tuvmar…”</p><p>Her eyes glanced up, as if she were trying to search her own mind for the word that would link it all together.</p><p>“Beep-beep. Beep-beep…. Tuvmar…”</p><p>Gesturing before her, something small, compact-</p><p>The humming in the air.</p><p>The flood of star-fire in veins.</p><p>It clicked suddenly, unbelievably, <em>irrevocably.</em></p><p>“<em>Battery</em>.”</p><p>Obi-Wan said, and she smiled at his answer, toothy, untamed, as bright as the feeling her touch brought.</p><p>“Battery. Me battery. Anakin touch… Absorb… push… Me… Charge?”</p><p>The dots connect like a star map plotting a route home from unknown space.</p><p>Anakin must have used the Force around him when trying to communicate, and in turn, took it within himself, mixed the two, and the Force around him at the time had been <em>Leilani.</em></p><p>It was possibly why he had been able to do what he did, despite the Jedi never having heard of this means of communication.</p><p>
  <em>The hands cradling the ball of white-bright light. </em>
</p><p>They had been touching, had they not?</p><p>Touch that had amplified Anakin’s own abilities into something that matched the Progenitors.</p><p>Touch that had taken, and matched, and bled back out for Leilani to soak up back into herself.</p><p>“That’s why you’re speaking clearer, is it not? Why you are understanding us better? Every time you touch something-… <em>Someone</em>, they’re accidently feeding off you and looping it back into you. You absorb the Force we use right back and-“</p><p>Leilani nodded urgently, but then lifted one shoulder in a half-formed shrug.</p><p>“Learn. Small… Slither. Not… Enough.”</p><p>Obi-Wan pulled away from the railing entirely.</p><p>“This is brilliant news. If we try again-… You do not seem very happy with this happenstance.”</p><p>Nevertheless, there was nothing <em>half formed</em> about her flinch.</p><p>“Battery. Touch… Anakin-… Me Battery. If Sith…”</p><p>The Lightsaber drops, and with it, so does Obi-Wan’s stomach.</p><p>“If the Sith get a hold of you, they can do the same and… Well, that would be terrible indeed.”</p><p>If this were the case, and Leilani was a… Conduit or Avatar, so to speak, of the Force, a battery that could soak in Force and magnify a Force wielders abilities by mere presence or touch alone, then this was…</p><p>More perilous and grave than originally understood.</p><p>If she were made of the Force, a shard of it within, a sea of it, a supernova star as Obi-Wan had <em>felt</em> himself, then, surely, it was a two-way street. What she was around, the Force that lingered outside of herself, could, perhaps, infect her and bend her and influence her.</p><p>Her absorbing snippets of language from Obi-wan and Anakin had proven this thus far.  </p><p>The Force was connected with all things, a connection, it would seem, even Leilani was not exempt from. If she were around a <em>Sith</em>, not only would she amplify their powers, but they could also, by exposure, transfer that fear, that hatred, that anger-</p><p>The darkness to her.</p><p><em>Into </em>her.  </p><p>And a Dark Side Progenitor was a chilling and sobering thought.</p><p>Reaching up, mind circling with thoughts that came too fast to grasp completely, Obi-Wan softly stroked at the beard of his chin.</p><p>“This changes things.”</p><p>Leilani, in response, trundled back to the edge of the balcony, back to Coruscant, leaning heavily on the railing. The sigh, Obi-Wan heard, cut off, held in her chest stiffly.</p><p>“Scared… No hurt. Me no hurt no one.”</p><p>Obi-Wan followed, side by side, and this time he did reach out, this time he did place a hand upon the small shoulder, and this time, as the embers and spurs of white-bright light ignited like meteor showers behind his eye lids, he held on tightly, and he smiled.</p><p>“And it is exactly because your first thought is not hurting anyone that you will not.”</p><p>He too faced Coruscant.</p><p>The sun was sinking behind the Hyperion tower, setting low into the belly of steal and glass and flashing lights.</p><p>Night was coming, and, Obi-Wan thought, it would be a dark, heavy, long one.</p><p>
  <em>In more ways than one. </em>
</p><p>His hand did not draw away from the shoulder, instead, it gripped tighter.</p><p>Even in the darkest of nights, Qui-Gon used to tell him so long ago, there were stars to light one’s path if one only remembered to look up.  </p><p>Now there was another right below his fingers.</p><p>“We’ll deal with the Sith when the time comes.”</p><p>She glanced over, looking up, smiling, doing a strange movement he had never seen with her hands, two fingers forward, straight and locked ahead, three and thumb curling back into a fist, aimed at him.</p><p>“Peshew, peshew?”</p><p>
  <em>A blaster pistol. </em>
</p><p>He laughs then, boisterously, perhaps the most loudly he had in years, the kind of laughter that flooded warmth between one’s ribs and lungs and made the places between places warm, making them ache in that pleasant way.</p><p>“Yes, peshew, peshew if we must.”</p><p>She almost jumped on her feet, fleeing the balcony, grinning, momentary annoyance at Anakin seemingly long forgotten by her shout into the rooms behind.</p><p>“Anakin! We Sith peshew, peshew!”</p><p>
  
</p><p>It was dark that night, mist and cloud heavy over the Jedi Temple. No stars, no moon, barely a passing speeder breaking the heavy silence pressing down upon the planet. Tossing for the hundredth time between his sheets, young Skywalker gave up the hope of sleeping that night and instead threw the tangled blankets off, slipped into his robes, and made way to the congregation chamber linking the three sleeping quarters together.</p><p>Obi-Wan would be asleep by now, and Leilani too, locked away safe in their own spaces.</p><p>A cup of tea to calm Anakin’s whirling thoughts would, perhaps, help him meet them there. Hopefully before he only managed to get two hours sleep before dawn came and with it, the day ahead.</p><p>Nevertheless, any and all ideas of sleep and dreams and cups of tea were dashed when he entered the larger chamber, as Anakin was hit by the blue light of a drawn Lightsaber, and a pair of brilliant blinking green eyes.</p><p>Anakin sputtered, stumbling to a stop just inside the room.</p><p>“What by the Force are you <em>doing </em>with Master Kenobi’s Lightsaber?”  </p><p>The blade withdrew with a click of a button, and Leilani, now dressed in what appeared to be a mimicked version of his own robes, unalike only by their shocking red and gold hues, put a finger to her lips, just one, and hissed wind between her pressed lips.</p><p>“Shhhhh!”</p><p>Glancing right, to the only closed door left, Leilani waited with bated breath. When no bedraggled Jedi Master came out of Obi-Wan’s room, she turned to him in the dark and grinned.</p><p>“We Sith Peshew, peshew!”</p><p>Anakin rolled his eyes, but could not fight the smile from breaking across his face.</p><p>“I very much doubt you’re going to fight a Sith before dawn.”</p><p>She very nearly looked petulant.</p><p>“You no know.”</p><p>Instead of returning the Lightsaber from where she had clearly stolen it, and how she had done so without awaking Anakin’s Master was beyond him, back on the nightstand beside the bed where Obi-Wan kept his weapon close at hand, she strapped it to the belt of her robes with a snap of a loop.</p><p>That was around when Anakin noticed she had boots on.</p><p>“And where exactly do you think you are going with that?”</p><p>Leilani ignored him partially, an action that… Chaffed at something unnameable in his rib cage, and made her way for the door exiting their chambers, barking one lone word out into the darkness.</p><p>“Roof.”</p><p>The door swished open as she pressed the button, and Anakin Jostled the straps of his robes closed, toeing on his boots at the entrance of their chambers, rushing to follow Leilani’s quickly disappearing form, huffing and puffing along the way.</p><p>Out in the empty hall, Anakin hissed.</p><p>“You’re not going to get far without an access chip for the doors along the way. That’s to some extent why the droids shot at you before. You had no identification.”</p><p>She span on her heel elegantly, still strolling backwards down the shadowed hall with quick, sure steps, hand dipping between the folds of her robes and producing-</p><p>An access chip.</p><p><em>His </em>access chip.</p><p>His access chip that he kept safe on his persons at all time.</p><p>His own hand snapped to the pocket of his breeches.</p><p>It met flat fabric.</p><p>Robes and breeches he had only just put on, but had been braced across his sleeping chamber’s chair only minutes before.</p><p>A chair she would have had to sneak to, while he had been <em>awake</em>, and rummage through to get that chip.</p><p>“How did you get that?”</p><p>Anakin caught up to the imp, reaching out to snatch at the chip she teasingly held out, but, inevitably, she was faster, clasping it in a tight, safe fist and-</p><p>
  <em>Winking. </em>
</p><p>She winked at him, once again placing a finger to her lips.</p><p>“Shhhh. Secret.”</p><p>Anakin glared.</p><p>“You can’t just steal things.”</p><p>Leilani span back around, marching down the corridor, chuckling huskily into the night, cocking her head at him playfully.</p><p>“No steal. <em>Borrow</em>. Give back… Eventually.”</p><p>Anakin snorted indignantly, and fought to keep up with her swift strides, surprising how fast she could move given how short she was, murmuring underneath his breath.</p><p>“I almost liked you better when I couldn’t understand you at all.”</p><p>A hand shot out, grabbed his Padawan braid by the beads, and tugged mischievously before relinquishing the lock of interwoven hair.</p><p>“Rude, Force-boy.”</p><p>She carried on down the hall, and this was when Anakin should really have doubled back and awoken his Master, Obi-Wan. Dragged him out of bed so he could drag Leilani into hers.</p><p>Leilani, at least somewhat, <em>listened</em> to the older Jedi.  </p><p>And yet, Anakin made no such move, rather following, voice rolling low, hoping against all they did not run into any Master’s making rounds.</p><p>“Why are you going to the roof?”</p><p>She came to the end of the corridor, skirted to the side, and poked her head around the corner, checking left and right before her body followed through.</p><p>So she <em>did </em>understand that she should not be creeping around in the dead of night then?</p><p>Anakin wasn’t sure whether that was comforting or not, and what it truly said about him that he was not putting a stop to this right then and there.</p><p>“Roof Sith.”</p><p>She drummed at the scar cutting her copper brow in two with a knuckle.</p><p>“Sense. Touch? Stood? Sense.”</p><p>Leilani wanted to go see if she could sense the Sith that had been on the roof, then?</p><p>Surely that wasn’t too dangerous?</p><p>The Sith would be long gone by now, and-</p><p>Anakin reached out, snagged the fold of her robe by her arm, and pulled her close to the wall with a muted thud of their backs meeting brick.</p><p>Through the dark she glared at him heatedly, but, mercifully for them <em>both</em>, before she could,<em> likely</em>, yell at him, call him ‘Rude!’ all over again, Master Plo Koon came down the adjacent hall and into the neighbouring exit towards the Council meeting halls.</p><p>One breath, one step, two breath, two steps-</p><p>
  <em>Gone. </em>
</p><p>Anakin sagged, sighing raggedly. He could hear thrumming, a pounding below his flesh that was nearly unbearably warm, a whipping surge of something white and light and powerful sinking down into his guts and-</p><p>“Go now?”</p><p>“We should head back and talk to Master-“</p><p>However, Leilani wasn’t gesturing towards the path forward, nor backwards to their rooms, dreadfully, she was nodding down to his hand still on her shoulder, fastened snugly.  </p><p>Anakin’s hand snatched back from the limb, and the thrumming sensation ceased, leaving cold, lonely silence.</p><p>The heat, however, ostensibly fled right up to his cheeks.</p><p>It wasn’t a blush, of course.</p><p>Anakin Skywalker did <em>not </em>blush.</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>She beamed at him, all teeth and dimple and a touch more or less <em>feral</em>, and pounced away from the wall, heading the way Plo Koon had come.</p><p>“Quick look. No fear, Force-boy.”</p><p>By the looks of things, Anakin had two options.</p><p>Run back like the wind and awaken Master Kenobi so they could both find Leilani and bring her back.</p><p>Or…</p><p>“I’m not <em>scared. </em>Fine… A quick look, and then we <em>must</em> head back.”</p><p>Stealing at his sleeve, Leilani and Anakin made their way sneaking through the dark.</p><p>“Knew you Gryffindor!”</p><p>He did not know what a Gryffindor was, but it appeared to be high praise by the way she grinned at him even, somehow, someway, <em>impossibly,</em> brighter.</p><p>No, Anakin Skywalker did not blush.  </p><p>
  <em>Never. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Standing upon the Jedi Temple roof at night, side by side with a Progenitor, was a altogether distinct experience. Dark was the night, calm was the wind, and peaceful was the ground.</p><p>Peaceful <em>and </em>destroyed.</p><p>Most of the rubble from the Shroud exploding, as it had, was still there in shambled pieces and debris mounds, the broken chairs from the conference littering the walkway, the unusual scorch mark from the blast a scar across the stone.</p><p>Leilani stood at his flank, staring at what was left of the Shroud standing upright on the cracked and crumbled plinth, a small, jarring slag of carven rock.</p><p>“Way home gone.”</p><p>There was no way home, not for her, and not now, according to Master Yoda earlier that day. Not for anyone or anything that came from the Shrouds. Nevertheless, she possibly hadn’t understood that at the time, too caught up in painting on the walls.</p><p>There was a little voice in the back of Anakin's mind that whispers <em>good </em>at the prospect of her way <em>away </em>being destroyed, gone, out of her reach.</p><p>Anakin steadfastly pretended <em>that</em> little voice did not exist.</p><p>Leilani herself bent down deep, balancing on her heels, and dusted off a stone slab by her foot.</p><p>The Jedi symbol etched across the face in blue and white greeted her.</p><p>Her hand loitered over the emblem, fingers tracing, a loving caress across the azure.</p><p>“You know Jedi mean?”</p><p>Anakin frowned down at her back.</p><p>“It’s an Order, my Order, duty bound to uphold peace within our galaxy.”</p><p>Her hand pulled away from the stone, a swift wipe on her thigh before she stood anew.</p><p>“No. Jedi my tongue?”</p><p>Oh, what Jedi meant in Protobesh?</p><p>Evidently, Anakin could not answer that, but his head did cock curiously.</p><p>“It has a direct translation?”</p><p>She regarded the slate before her solemnly, miserably some might say.</p><p>“Phoenix. Jedi mean <em>Phoenix</em>. Old order… My Order. Order of the Phoenix. Sirius too.”</p><p>She pointed down to the symbol, keen eyes sharp in the dim night.</p><p>“See? Wings… Phoenix rising. Same symbol we use… <em>Used</em>.”</p><p>
  <em>Use-d. </em>
</p><p>Past tense.</p><p>Fleetingly, Anakin questioned what he would do, what he would feel, standing in Leilani’s boots. Eons into the future, staring at the faces of his people that he could no longer recognize, could not speak the same language as fluently, so far apart now they were virtually different species.</p><p>What would the primordial soup say to the mammal?</p><p>What would the big bang say to the asteroid?</p><p>How far did the bridge between their lives go?</p><p>It must be bizarre.</p><p>It must be <em>hard.</em></p><p>“You were a part of the proto-Jedi. You were there when all this first began.”</p><p>Leilani bite at the tender flesh of her lip.</p><p>“Order young my time. Mother, father, first members. Meant to end. Meant to go when Voldemort go… Tom came back. Sith Wizards came back. Order come back too… Fight now-… Fight <em>then.</em> Order Phoenix… Survived. Here now, standing but… Different. Not same.”</p><p>She peered at him, unwavering, unyielding, holding him in place with something heavier than the Force.</p><p>“Lost much.”</p><p>Anakin took a step closer.</p><p>“You can rebuild and-“</p><p>Leilani shook her head, fire-flame curls bouncing, melancholy slope pulling taut at the corners of her eyes.</p><p>“Not me. Jedi lost much. Hollow now… Lost much. Lost <em>self.” </em></p><p>If the Jedi Masters heard her say that-</p><p>But the Masters were not there, Anakin was, and, Anakin thought with a grin, even if they were Leilani would say exactly the same to them.</p><p>
  <em>Lost self. </em>
</p><p>Was that not the point of their training? To rid themselves of their attachments, to become one with balance in neutral equilibrium? To bring peace, one must feel it for themselves first. That is the first lesson a Youngling is taught.</p><p>Anakin had never found peace.</p><p>“Is that why you trusted me back in that Senator’s room? You saw the symbol and thought I was one of your own?”</p><p>He doesn’t know why that idea… Aggravates him as much as it does, the idea that she had only taken his hand because of a badge at his breast, but it <em>does</em>, and Anakin ignores that has much as he ignored that little voice from before.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>She laughed at him, sunny, strong, but not a ring of it mean.</p><p>“Anakin good heart. I see. Kind… <em>Loud</em>.”</p><p>Anakin had no idea how, or why, a heart could be loud, and what that could possibly mean. Neither did he have time to question it further, as she ambled around him, towards the rubble, searching with her hand out, palm open and flat, passing over stone and brick and twisted chair leg-</p><p>
  <em>Sensing. </em>
</p><p>Dutifully, more than a bit curious, Anakin followed, waiting and watching, and after a while, when they find themselves by the Chancellors podium, he breached the silence.</p><p>“See or sense anything?”</p><p>Before her hand could pass over the knocked over podium, Leilani heaved back, mouth sketched closed, shaking her head disappointedly.</p><p>“Sense Sith… Hiding. Good hiding… Insidious.”</p><p>So she can sense him then.</p><p>Just not much else.</p><p>Visibly frustrated, Leilani stalked to the closest heap of wreckage and plonked down with a puff, and Anakin found himself being hauled along to her side, tumbling to a seat beside her, almost mindless to his own movements.</p><p>Their knees knocked, a flare and a dip in the shine.</p><p>It was… Nice here, comfortable and gentle, just the two of them, in the ruins of the old and new, lost and found, gone and here. Maybe not peace, maybe Anakin would never know peace, but it was… Pleasant, or some facsimile of that word he could not place.</p><p>All they were missing was Obi-Wan, he thought, or that little voice thought, or perhaps it was Leilani who thought it and somehow it had ended up in his own mind.</p><p>Did it really matter where it came from?</p><p>“Feel… Floating. Adrift. So… Different. Leilani Float away in the missing.”</p><p>Her voice was tuned to a minor key, raw in its sincerity, harsh in its breaking.</p><p>Anakin had felt that way when he had been a child, when he had first come to this Temple on the death of Qui-Gon with a Master still in mourning with a Padawan now under his protection. In truth, of which a Jedi was always meant to be, no matter how uneasy that truth was to bare, he still sometimes felt that way, as if the ceiling was collapsing down upon him, burying him in dirt and dust and death, a weight pushing down, and down, and down until he would be devoured by the ground.</p><p>Anakin does not have an answer to Leilani’s concern, as he did not have an answer to his own.</p><p>Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone’s hand was the beginning of a journey, as it had been for them in the Senator’s rooms.</p><p>And sometimes, having someone take your own was when journeys became something <em>more. </em> </p><p>Perhaps Leilani sensed something, possibly she could read his thoughts, it could be that he had accidently spoken it all in one pouring flood, but one moment his hand was empty and the next her own glided down his arm, closing over his hand, fingers lacing, palms kissing.</p><p>Anakin could feel the steady thump of her heart through the soft, lean skin and-</p><p>There was no star-fire blaze that time, nothing so harsh and blinding and impossible to describe.</p><p>Only gentleness, a tender lapping, the barest of burns that did not warm but enfolded and embraced.  </p><p>
  <em>Home.</em>
</p><p>It felt like home.</p><p>When he peeked over, he found her smile as delicately beautiful as the feeling was.</p><p>“Help Skydancer fly.”</p><p>Anakin held onto that feeling, and he took it deep, and he held it close, and he did not let it go.</p><p>“And I’ll keep your feet on the ground.”</p><p>Names and Orders, symbols and peace, Jedi and Sith seemed unimportant in that moment, that effortless reticence, that offer and promise.</p><p>I’ll help you fly.</p><p>I’ll keep you grounded.</p><p>They sit there, him and she, she and him, perhaps just one, with the soft-burn beneath their bones, watching the sunrise over-</p><p>
  <em>Sunrise. </em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan would be waking by now.</p><p>Leilani seemingly came to the same conclusion he had, and the two leapt up, fleeing the rooftop hand in hand, laughing in the daybreak.</p><p>
  
</p><p>By the time Obi-Wan awakened, lugged himself from his bed, sonic showered and dressed for the day, and made it to the congregation chamber of their suite at daybreak, Leilani and Anakin were already there, wide-eyed and alert and far too innocent looking.</p><p>That was the first sign.</p><p>Anakin was sitting in the chair, feet perched on the tables edge, carefully careless. Leilani was spread across the long seat, underneath a blanket from neck to shoe-</p><p>
  <em>Shoe. </em>
</p><p>Second sign.</p><p>Both were a little tousled, flushed in the cheek, slightly out of breath.</p><p>Third sign.</p><p>Obi-Wan eyed the pair tiredly.</p><p>“Has either of you seen where I placed my Lightsaber?”</p><p>The two shared a not so inconspicuous glance at each other, and Anakin smiled charmingly his way.</p><p>“Have you checked the nightstand? That is normally where you leave it, Master.”</p><p>Obi-Wan veered towards his doorway, speaking.</p><p>“I’ve already searched-“</p><p>He heard the clink of metal hitting glass, and when he turned back around, his Lightsaber was on the table between the chair and long seat, rolling in movement.</p><p>And Leilani’s blanket corner was flipping back into exactly the same position it had been when Kenobi had peered towards his door.</p><p>Obi-Wan exhaled slow and hard, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and moved towards their small pantry.</p><p>“Tea first, explanations after.”</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>“Well, next time Leilani wants to go rushing off into the night, at best wake me up and inform me, Anakin. Our duty now is to protect her, and I cannot fulfil that duty if I do not know where she is.”</p><p>Anakin Skywalker, standing next to the runway of a small cargo freighter, appeared properly chastened.</p><p>Obi-Wan knew his Padawan better than that, however.</p><p>“Yes, Master.”</p><p>Given the chance, <em>given the tone</em>, Anakin would do all this again.</p><p>Leilani herself was coming up on the rear, staring up at the ship as she strolled-</p><p>A fault in her step, a flinch at her eye, a slight misstep.  </p><p>Her hand flew to the scar on her forehead, and Obi-Wan edged closer.</p><p>“Are you alright, Leilani?”</p><p>A transitory worry before Leilani brushed it off.</p><p>“Nothing… Think. Small burn… Far away. No fear.”</p><p>She levelled out and dashed up the runway, into the mouth of the ship.</p><p>“Find Sirius!”</p><p>Obi-Wan and Anakin followed, and soon, the runway receded, and the door closed, and the engines fired to life.</p><p>A second later, the ship took off, heading for the stars.</p><p>
  
</p><p>The forgotten eighth Shroud on Moraband stood tall against the blood drenched sky. A waver, a flicker, the voices of the damned.</p><p>A flash of screams and-</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Calm.</p><p>A cloaked figure stepped out from the Veil, pale, eyes as red as ruby moons, hissing in Parseltongue to the cackling woman at his side and the beast of grey, matted hair snarling at their right.</p><p>Death answered back, and it made the Dark Lord smile.</p><p>
  
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